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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (260818)	6/3/2002 7:26:49 PM
From: bonnuss_in_austin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Thx, Ray. I'm impressed with Arianna Huffington. I thought she was a Ann Coulter type. Glad to see she's not. At least doesn't appear to be at this point. ALSO thanks for the excellent article re the despicable Ari Fleischer. I think his day is coming, as well as Hughes and Rove ... to the 'downside.' -g- bia

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (260818)	6/4/2002 4:03:23 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

I think Arianna pegged it: ...Namely, the agency's crippling addiction to America's war on drugs. While Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida minions were diligently preparing for their murderous mission, the FBI was looking the other way with equal determination. More than twice as many FBI agents were assigned to fighting drugs (2,500) than fighting terrorism (1,151). And a far greater amount of the FBI's financial resources was dedicated to the war on drugs. And this pathological prioritization of the drug war extended well beyond the allocation of money and manpower. It was ingrained in the culture. Counterterrorism units were treated like the bureau's ugly stepchildren, looked down upon by FBI management because they weren't making the kind of high-profile arrests that spruce up a supervisor's resume and make the evening news. Let's face it, canvassing flight schools in search of suspicious students is nowhere near as sexy as one of those big drug busts with the bags of coke or bales of pot piled high for the cameras. It’s now painfully clear that there were terror warning signs aplenty but that they were disregarded by distracted FBI officials who had their eyes on a very different prize. In Phoenix, where the now infamous Ken Williams memo originated, counterterrorism agents complained bitterly about their efforts being given "the lowest investigative priority" by a supervisor who preferred glamorous drug-fighting investigations.