August 1998

With the current discussion of the failure of the military, CIA, and FBI to exchange information in 2000 and 2001 to prevent the 9/11 attack, 1998 becomes relevant.

This is the forgotten 7th anniversary of coordinated terrorist bombings United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya which killed 224 people and injured over 4,500. This brought worldwide attention to Osama bin Laden who took full credit for the attack.

The analysis of how this could have happened brought to the page of the New York Times claims agencies were not communicating with each other because of historical turf guarding. The ambassador had warned the State Department of the building's vulnerability to any street-level blast and nothing was done because it was not in that year's budget.

Elsewhere, the Taliban were closing in on Kabul, and the United Nations was shocked (again) that Iraq was no longer cooperating with its inspectors.