for reasons those who study intelligence failure will find familiar, 9/11 fits very much into the norm of surprise caused by a breakdown of intelligence warning." The breakdown happened, in part, because there was poor information-sharing among analysts (in different FBI offices, for example). At a conceptual level, US intelligence knew that al-Qaida actions almost always involve multiple, near-simultaneous attacks; however, the FBI did not assimilate piecemeal information on oddly behaving foreign flight-training students into this context. On the day of the hijackings (under tremendous time pressure), no analyst associated the multiple hijackings with the multiple-attack signature of al-Qaeda. The failure to conceive that a major attack could occur within the US left the country unprepared. For example, irregularities detected by the Federal Aviation Administration and North American Air Defense Command did not flow into a center where analysts could consolidate this information and (ideally) collate it with earlier reports of odd behavior among certain pilot trainees, or the possibility of hijacked airliners being used as weapons. Inappropriate analogies Inappropriate analogies are yet another cognitive trap. Though analogies may be extremely useful they can become dangerous when forced, or when they are based on assumptions of cultural or contextual equivalence. Avoiding such analogies is difficult when analysts are merely unconscious of differences between their own context and that of others; it becomes extremely difficult when they are unaware that important knowledge is missing. Difficulties associated with admitting one's ignorance are an additional barrier to avoiding such traps. Such ignorance can take the form of insufficient study: a lack of factual information or understanding; an inability to mesh new facts with old; or a simple denial of conflicting facts. Organizational culture Even extremely creative thinkers may find it difficult to gain support within their organization. Often more concerned with appearances, managers may suppress conflict born of creativity in favor of the status quo. A special case of stereotyping is stovepiping, whereby a group heavily invested in a particular collection technology ignores valid information from other sources (functional specialization). It was a Soviet tendency to value HUMINT (HUMan INTelligence), gathered from espionage, above all other sources; the Soviet OSINT was forced to go outside the state intelligence organization in developing the USA (later USA-Canada) Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Another specialization problem may come as a result of security compartmentalization. An analytic team with unique access to a source may