Resolved: The directors of the CIA and FBI should resign, or be fired

[Milossarian]

… in light of this new information from the L.A. Times.

The two agencies are continuing to bicker over what the CIA let the FBI knew about al-Quaeda terrorists being in the USA pre-Sept. 11. The CIA claims in late August it sent a memo to the FBI saying it had information that two men with ties to bin Laden had entered the USA, and two other suspected terrorists should be stopped from entering.

The CIA claims this bulletin was sent to the Feds under the heading of “immediate,” the highest-priority emergency bulletin short of war. Officials at the FBI dispute this, and say their copy didn’t have this heading for some reason, and that they were given no sense of urgency, thinking only that the individuals should go on an INS ‘watch list.’

The FBI did try to follow up on the two guys who entered, as they were also connected to the ongoing investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole. Some agents did cursory checks of the hotels where the guys said they would be staying when they entered the USA, to no avail.

They then hijacked a plane on Sept. 11 and crashed it into the Pentagon.

With all of the above as pretext, this is what has me outraged, and believing that CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller should resign, or be fired.

From the Times:

a simple check of public records and addresses from the California Department of Motor Vehicles would have shown the FBI that Almihdhar and Alhazmi had been living at a series of addresses in the San Diego area.

Similarly, a check with credit card companies would have shown that Alhazmi used a Visa card in his own name on the Internet to purchase a ticket on Flight 77 on Sept. 11. He bought the ticket Aug. 27 and gave an address in Fort Lee, N.J., according to law enforcement records.

Moreover, if the FBI had provided the airlines with the two men’s names, the airlines could have alerted authorities to their travel plans and prevented them from boarding. Since the attacks, airlines have been receiving watch list names and checking them against ticketed passengers.

You can say hindsight is 20/20. I agree. This seems pretty basic to me, however. If these people were suspects in a bombing that killed 17 U.S. soldiers, shouldn’t that have made them a high priority?

The two agencies who are given and spend tens of millions of dollars for our national security couldn’t figure out to check what three or four reporters at the L.A. Times figured out? These terrorists were using their real names, all over the place!

The story goes into greater detail about the absolutely silly turf wars over information between the two agencies. And the State Department is kept out of the loop. They gave Mohammed Atta a U.S. Passport, even though he was known to have met with operatives of Osama bin Laden!

I know all that has changed now. But I think heads should roll over the failure to check public records in the search for known terrorism suspects.

It was deriliction of duty, plain and simple.

[curious_george]

I agree, heads should roll. After the Space shuttle explosion, Nasa leaders were fired.

The CIA director is Tenent, a Clinton appointee from NYC. The FBI has been under the gun for years now. Didn’t Freeh resign under pressure?

[Beagle]

Yes, and Bill Clinton should commit ritual suicide like a disgraced Japanese general.

[Beagle]

Ah, he took over on September 4th. Can you show he even knew about any of this? Wasn’t Louis Freeh in charge at the time? Oh, and one more thing Milossarian isn’t charging Muller for his predecessers mistakes a snicker Catch 22? I crack myself up.

[GIGObuster]

When the Waco fire occurred in April 19, 1993 Janet Reno (and in essence president Clinton) took full responsibility for the disaster, by then the administration was only 3 and a half months old. (Later commissions, even the ones organized by the republicans, put the blame squarely on David Koresh)

Nevermind that the original plan was put into fruition by the guys appointed by the former republican administration, if Beagle is right responsibility was something that was supposed to be send to Bush.

As Janet Reno showed I do not agree with this business of sending the blame to the former captain of the ship, especially if the republicans poopooed and eviscerated the antiterrorism bills that the Clinton administration proposed.

Now, when I see the right wing (9 months into the current administration) still blaming everything on the former administration, I wonder if it is really the grown ups who took control of the ship. All that reminds me about Harry Truman:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm

On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. For example, in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, “You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you – and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here’ – the decision has to be made.” In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that, "The President–whoever he is–has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.

Do the right wingers think that the sign on Bush’s desk says, “The buck stopped with Clinton”?

When a bipartisan commission report that dealt with terrorist treats was delivered, the current administration decided to sit on it and do more analysis, I think Dick Cheney was supposed to be in charge of it.

But back to the OP: I do agree that heads should roll for the sheer incompetence, even in Pearl Harbor the admiral in charge of the fleet was disgraced. And we should not forget the airline companie’s security and also the Media that only knew how to keep pressure on Gary Condit and sharks.

[Beagle]

Read the link. Bill Clinton passed on a chance to have Osama Bin Laden extradited to the U.S. for craven reasons. What you say about Waco, well, I really don’t know how that relates to the OP, or anything I said. Seriously, what are you talking about?
[sub]Psst! I am not a Republican, either.[/sub]

[GIGObuster]

*Originally posted by Beagle *
Bill Clinton passed on a chance to have Osama Bin Laden extradited to the U.S. for craven reasons. What you say about Waco, well, I really don’t know how that relates to the OP, or anything I said. Seriously, what are you talking about?

Your comment probed that you are still fixed on Clinton and not the OP so I was criticizing the almost pathological need of wringing Clinton into the discussion (Remember Harry Truman). We are talking about the current CIA and FBI management problems. TODAY we have a mayor problem in our hands and if the FBI and CIA do not have their acts together we should demand an investigation of what went wrong.

[GIGObuster]

I meant to say, “proves” not probed, sorry.

[GIGObuster]

And speaking of reading links:

The opportunity to kill Bin Laden (and even that OPINION in the WSJ says it was only a possibility) occurred in 1996.

To capture him or killing him we needed a good reason but:

The Cole attack happened in October 12, 2000

The African embassy attacks occurred in 1998

That leaves the original bombing of the World Trade center but:

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/wtc93.htm

Osama bin Laden, widely believed to have been the mastermind of the August 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, would seem a natural candidate to support the WTC bombing, but to date none of the government indictments against him indicate a connection to the incident.

Well, the WSJ just showed to be only as good as a Monday morning quarterback.

[Milossarian]

Beagle - I hadn’t realized that Mueller was appointed that late. It does seem to significantly mitigate his culpability.

I don’t think that it completely absolves him, however. Wouldn’t you spend your first days as director of something (and the briefings leading up to your taking over) finding out what major projects your organization has going on, and how you are approaching them?

The point stands that whoever was in leadership of this investigation (ultimately the director) didn’t do something as simple as check public records and credit cards, something a regular watcher of “Law & Order” would know to do. All while “looking” for men accused of mass murder and terrorism prior to Sept. 11.

As for the Opinion Journal link on Clinton, I’m pretty well known to be a conservative who tends to side with the Republican perspective, and I have gone on record repeatedly that I have virtually no use for Clinton at all. But I would take that allegation with several grains of salt.

[Beagle]

I think the CIA sucks. The CIA screwed the pooch in reading the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism, and had Aldrich Ames working counterintelligence for years while a Russian spy, etc, etc. Changing directors will make no difference, it is scapegoating. This whole issue is bureaucratic SNAFU, the CIA fumbled the ball and the FBI didn’t fall on it. Nothing unusual there. Yes, the agencies need to work together and to communicate. Many systematic reforms must be made through legislation. Changing directors is one minor step which will, in all liklihood, make no difference.

Clinton screwed up (massive understatement). He could have brought Bin Laden here, charged him with conspiracy to commit murder, RICO violations, and terroristic threats in relation to the ambush of U.S. troops in Somalia and his many public statements advocating the destruction of the United States. Why did Clinton fail to act? According to Sandy Berger, because Clinton feared our justice system. That is scandalous. The president is then excused from protecting the nation if it may involve going to court? This “reasoning” ignores the clear and present danger Bin Laden presented to our country and the benefits derived from getting him off the streets for a year or two. Given the nature of the charges and the flight risk Bin Laden posed the U.S. could have held him in custody for a year or more even if we could not convict him, which we could. Any time OBL would have spent in prison would have been time he was not recruiting for and organizing the destruction of the U.S.

While we are looking for scapegoats how do we leave out the head of U.S. foreign policy for the last eight years? What did Clinton do after the embassies were blown up and the Cole attacked? One pinprick missile strike, and nothing. Clinton had time to make sure the DNC got lots of money, Marc Rich and FALN terrorists were pardoned for political reasons, but foreign policy was too much of a bother. When history writes the story of Bill Clinton his only redeeming quality will be that he was lucky the internet boom kept the economy moving. If we use the economy as a be all end all of judging presidents, FDR was far and away our worst. Which, as arguments go, is stupid–just like crediting Clinton with the good economy. The president has no red button that makes the economy better, but he is in charge of military and foreign policy.

GIGO, strange on a topic which is all about monday morning quarterbacking I get a criticism that I am monday morning quarterbacking. Who is “pathological?” You brought in Bush (41) and Waco, that is thursday afternoon quarterbacking from the left field bleachers. What I suggested related directly to the OP.

[GIGObuster]

Beagle, Read the dates of the attracts again, please see the conclusions of the OPINION (last time I checked that was not news, only an opinion) are wrong by the simple fact that in 1996 there were very few reasons to capture or kill Bin Laden. Go up the posts and see that the blame Clinton syndrome is mentioned first by you and that the Monday morning quarterback remark is directed to the WSJ not you.

[GIGObuster]

Curses! I meant to say “read the dates of the attacks”. Yes I do not feel ok today, (missing my previews too)

I think the FBI did identify almost all the perpetrators awhile ago but only today it starts the job of tracing the money of other suspects WTF?

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011018/pl/attack_list_sec_dc_1.html

But I agree with the point that changing directors is not a very effective way to change the bureaucracy in the FBI and CIA (so is also changing presidents), but we need first to launch an investigation of what went wrong. I do remember hearings already happened regarding the money trail but does anybody knows when hearings regarding the actions of the CIA or FBI will be made?

While we are looking for scapegoats how do we leave out the head of U.S. foreign policy for the last eight years?

We do it because of history Beagle, when in 1942 the Pearl Harbor hearings disgraced the Admiral neither congress or the NAVY bothered to look to blame the former commanders from 8 years ago. Incidentally President Roosevelt was not affected by all that, so lets keep this discussion up to the point, deal?

[Milossarian]

“Looking for scapegoats” implies that somebody should be punished just because someone needs to be punished for appearance’s sake.

I don’t agree with that at all.

I think they should resign because of deriliction of duty at each department. Doing something as fundamental as checking public records and credit cards to find the terrorists might have prevented what happened Sept. 11. What explanation for those steps not being taken can there be?

The evidence that it didn’t occur is as self-evident as those two terrorists getting aboard that jet they hijacked.

[jab1]

Beagle, I suggest you read this to see what Clinton did about bin Laden while President. For example:

Clinton’s most public response, of course, were the cruise missile attacks of 1998, directed against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and the Sudan, following the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Clinton was accused of only firing missiles in order to divert media attention from the Lewinsky hearings. A longer campaign would have stirred up even more criticism.

IOW, he was damned because he did, and would have been damned if he hadn’t. (Limbaugh and Gingrich would have you believe he did too little!) And look at this:

He sponsored legislation to freeze the financial assets of international organizations suspected of funneling money to bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network – identical to orders given by President Bush this month – but it was killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.

Why was this a good idea this year and not then? Because Bush proposed it instead of the hated Clinton. (There are more examples; read the whole story.)

Gingrich and Limbaugh accuse Clinton of not being focused on his job and they were among those doing their best to distract him! Where Clinton is concerned, far too many Republicans are blinded by rage to think clearly. Even in this time of crisis, partisan politics is the rule.

[capacitor]

Hey Beagle, why don’t you shift your focus on the Republicans who turned down requests by Clinton for more funding on the captur of bin Laden, and in fact impeached him on the same day he took action to go after the prson who now is public enemy #1.

[Dave_Stewart]

Protecting a country from terrorism is a performance based task.
If the director of the FBI was new, then fine, he couldn’t have done much about it.
But someone within the system screwed up royally. They didn’t do their job, and 5000 people lost their lives. The people responsible should be sacked.

[Masamune]

The people responsible should be sacked.

Sacking experienced people after a screw up is not the way to run a business. Just because this particular screw up cost 5000 lives does not increase the order of magnitude of the screw up by any great amount. Really, these people failed to check up on suspected terrorists… something that, with the great muddle between intelligence agencies, they might not have even been aware of. If the attack had cost 5 lives, nobody would really have much cared, but the essence of their failure would be exactly equal.

And just to put in my two cents on the Bush/Clinton blame thing, does it really matter who appointed these people? If Bush didn’t feel like the directors were doing a good job, he could have replaced them. Thusly, carryovers from a previous administration are the responsibility of the new one.

[Sofa_King]

Oh, screw Clinton. We’ve had a war cabinet in place for six months already. If these folks didn’t see it coming, nobody would have. I don’t like 'em, but I trust 'em that far.

But hey, if we’re going to be rolling heads here, wouldn’t it make more sense to point the finger directly at National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice? Her office is supposed to be the one that collects this information and advises the President.

And frankly, I think she’s been busting her ass to make up for what happened.

At any rate, if someone’s going to get axed for this, the fix is probably already in. There seems to be something of a tradition in the American intelligence community that those who screw up monumentally get to enjoy a few months of time in office before they quietly retire. The most notable example is that of Allen Dulles in the wake of the Bay of Pigs.

I’m not sure that’s the right way to do things.

Ever heard of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel? He was the guy whose head rolled for Pearl Harbor. He was also the guy who (along with his staff) warned against moving the fleet there in 1941, who lobbied tirelessly for the radar units that were only just set up (and misused due to unfamiliarity with them) before the December 7 attack, and who quietly made sure that not more than one aircraft carrier was in port at any given time (as it happens, one was returning that day). His successor, Chester Nimitz, kicked ass and took names, but we’ll never know what Kimmel, who was already in the process of preparing for war, would have done.

However, we do know what happened to another, contemporary, equally culpable and woefully embarassed commander in the wake of December 7. Douglas MacArthur, asshole though he may have been, displayed a brilliance and audacity that probably made up for his original absurd mistakes in the Far East. Part of his motivation, no doubt, was his intense desire to clear his own reputation. Like him or not, he did a pretty good job with the ass-end of American support.

History shows that time after time, people who took an unexpected shot on the chin got bounced just when they started showing positive results. Maybe this time, we ought to keep these folks and see what they can do after they’ve cleaned the egg off their faces.

(And anyway, how many times has America been so lucky as to start a war with a war cabinet already in place? Why should we mess with a good thing?)

[Bob_Scene]

*Originally posted by Milossarian *
The CIA claims this bulletin was sent to the Feds under the heading of “immediate,” the highest-priority emergency bulletin short of war.

Anyone who’s ever worked for or dealt with a bureaucracy knows that sending a government agency a memo is what you do when something needs to be looked at in the next couple of months or so. If you have something that you think is “the highest-priority emergency bulletin short of war,” doesn’t that mean calling up the Attorney General and the White House and jumping up and down and screaming? How many “highest-priority emergency bulletins short of war” did the CIA and FBI have to deal with that week? How many people involved in the Cole bombing did the FBI have to go out and arrest before they could get around to these guys?