Why America Never Had a Second 9/11: FBI Veteran Donald Alway, 25 Years On

America has never had a second 9/11, and Donald Alway spent over two decades inside the FBI after the attacks trying to keep it that way.On the 25th anniversary, Suzanne Kianpour and guest co-host Jamie Angus, a former BBC news executive, sit down with the man who was sent from Quantico to the Pentagon after the attacks for what he thought would be four days and stayed 35. He worked the crime scene in New York the following spring, went on to serve in Iraq and Doha and lead the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, and retired as Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office. He is now Chief Security Officer at Herbalife.He explains why Europe's returning-fighter problem never took hold in the United States, and what makes a person radicalising alone online harder to stop than a trained cell. He says the FBI never thought it needed a counter-propaganda campaign, and warns that people convicted of terrorism are starting to finish 25-year sentences and may not be on anyone's radar.Jamie puts Britain's decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship to him, and asks what the Gulf's surveillance-heavy model has bought after this week's Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia, and whether the Patriot Act should ever be rolled back. Suzanne raises the 170,000 pages of Ground Zero air quality records released by Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week and the turnover at the top of the FBI under Kash Patel. She closes on how a former counterterrorism official sees New York's first Muslim mayor, 25 years on.Follow Global Power Shifts and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1T2CsAK4983mRNmZPfApRyApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/global-power-shifts/id1791326929All episodes: https://jimstenman.com/global-power-shifts/Chapters00:00 "A four-day trip became 35 days"00:20 Introduction01:54 Quantico, the Pentagon and the day everything changed05:08 The Mamdani air quality documents: "no one would have stayed home"07:25 Why there has never been a second 9/1109:18 Radicalised alone, undetected11:25 Why Europe's returnee problem never reached America13:03 The IRGC, homegrown plots and terrorists finishing their sentences16:08 Should foreign fighters be allowed home?17:13 Shamima Begum and stripping citizenship19:49 October 7, Gaza and the campuses21:38 Can America's stance on Israel ever change?23:32 The ISIS song and why the FBI never ran counter-propaganda31:25 The Gulf: surveillance, trust and the Houthi strikes33:44 The Patriot Act, 25 years on35:50 "You're not in the bureau anymore. What do you really think?"37:41 Kash Patel and the turnover at the top39:10 Who is left, and the 9/11 museum programme for new agents41:41 A smaller American footprint in the Middle East44:22 New York's first Muslim mayor45:25 Close