Massimo Calabresi and Romesh Ratnesar

About the author: Massimo Calabresi is an intelligence correspondent for Time. Romesh Ratnesar is a staff writer for the same magazine.

There are many reasons why the CIA failed to anticipate and prevent the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. First, the CIA still functions as it did during the Cold War, but the threats to America's national security have changed radically since the Soviet Union collapsed. While the CIA still has numerous agents who speak fluent Russian, for instance, the war on terrorism requires operatives who speak Middle Eastern languages. Second, the U.S. intelligence community spends the majority of its budget on technology, such as satellites and eavesdropping gadgets, but this technology is not suited to track terrorists such as those responsible...