try looking at it from this point of view, before 9/11, I don't think bin laden was actually heard of that much back then.
I was a high school student back then, but I was well aware of the existence of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I distinctly recall watching the news reports in school showing 9/11 happening live and figuring that this was going to lead to the Afghan War before anyone even took credit for it.
Then again, I
was pretty well up on my current events and world affairs back then, and so it could be that I was a bit more alert to what was going on in the Middle East than most other people.
Well, it does look like the fall of a building set with demolition explosives. But I suppose an architect could design the building to fall straight down in case of a terror attack . . . so it would not topple over on other buildings.
IIRC, it was The History Channel who was working on a show about the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks. When they did air it some time later, they had to have a host during the intros and outtros to help discuss matters with people, and notes were appended to interviews to reflect those workers who were missing or had been confirmed as killed.
What happened was that the World Trade Center was designed in what - at the time - was a radical fashion meant to improve the amount of open floor space. Because of this, the place didn't have the kind of construction you'd normally see in towers that huge.
This, IIRC, was a key part in what happened. The design was put in place before passenger aircraft got as big or as fast as they were now, and so the building wasn't meant to handle an impact with something as large and as fast as a 747. The structural steel, as near as anyone can figure, was stressed enough as it was just holding the towers up due to their unusual construction; the combination of the impact and the raw heat inside the building weakened the supports enough that individual columns could no longer support the weight load.
People in shock can act very casual, in catastrophic situations; so President Bush's reaction and behavior could have been some sort of psychological inappropriateness, due to him being stunned . . . I suppose. It was reported that he said he did not want to panic the children, by leaving a reading session.
I've seen a lot of people argue that Bush should have thrown the book down and rushed out of the room.
These people do
not understand human psychology.
If leaders or key public figures panic during a situation, then that sends a psychological signal which tells
everyone to panic. But if a leader or key public figure can project an air of calm and professionalism, then the average person won't think about it all that much.
In this case, Bush' staffers knew only that a plane had crashed into a skyscraper. A tragedy to be sure, but the facts were not yet in order. Thus, Bush - not understanding the severity of the issue - chose to take a few seconds, process the news, and maintain his composure until the end of the scheduled appearance, at which point he'd be free to handle matters directly.
Condoleezza Rice said the intel community was not functioning well for sharing information; in fact, she said, they had enough pieces of info to expose the 9/11 plans, but they did not share the pieces of the puzzle they had, so they could see the picture.
From what I heard, before 9/11 there was a rather strict wall of separation between intelligence operations. For example, the FBI had sole jurisdiction on domestic issues while the CIA had sole jurisdiction on foreign issues; the two couldn't share data because doing so was prohibited. Why? It'd give the impression that the CIA was spying on Americans, et cetra.
Wasn't there that sex scandal thing, about Bill Clinton?
The Lewinsky scandal (et al) had largely died down.
In its place we had:
1. Allegations that the Clintons tried to take government property with them when they left in the belief that it was their personal property.
2. Allegations that Clinton staffers had vandalized and sabotaged various portions of the White House when they left, resulting in a fairly considerable amount of damage and lost time.
3. Allegations that Bill had received bribes for a number of the pardons that he issued during his final days as president.
Pundit Barbara Olson went into these allegations (and more) in her book "Final Days". Ironically, Olson herself was among the dead on 9/11, as she was on one of the hijacked planes; the book in question was released posthumously.