TRACKING THE MISSTEPS
In Years of Plots and Clues, Scope of Qaeda Eluded U.S.
By JUDITH MILLER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Fascinating article. Just finished my Sunday morning read of the Times.
I was unable to understand the meaning of starting the congressional investigation in 1986. I assumed it was some sort of consensus of spreading blame across several presidencies. Perhaps that was involved, but, it turns out, 1986 is the year of the creation of an antiterrorism group in the CIA which was to "coordinate" such work with the FBI and other intelligence gathering groups/agencies.
It's quite clear, looking backwards from today, that there were, in the words of the article, "stunning" intelligence failures; it's harder, however, to say that, if you are careful to situate yourself at the time, those failures were quite so stunning. Mistakes, yes; serious mistakes, yes; failures, yes; serious failures, yes. But the gravity depends.
My reading of the article fits with other material I've read to suggest that the intelligence agencies--FBI, CIA, NSA, are desperately in need of a reorganization. I don't know whether it's important they be put under the new Homeland Security rubric. But it is clear that that the gathering of intelligence is flawed, the analysis of intelligence is flawed, cooperation between agencies is severely flawed, etc. I, for one, would be much more comfortable with wholesale restructing of each, done by a trusted, basically apolitical, perhaps William Webster type for each agency.
At the moment, the Bush plans seems too infected with political aims for my tastes. I'm not arguing it should not have political aims; to think otherwise, to wish away the political is dumb and perhaps not even a good idea. But it just seems much too prominent for me at the moment.
I like Maureen Dowd's take on it. If I don't see that someone else has posted her Sunday column by the time I complete my Sunday read, I will do so. |
