CIA: Asleep At The Switch (Bill Press Barf)

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In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, how many times did we hear some terrorism expert say: If only the CIA had known al-Qaida operatives were in the United States, this tragedy might never have happened?

In an explosive report, the inspector general of the United States concludes that CIA agents had tracked two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from a terrorist summit in Malaysia to the United States. CIA officials knew of their al-Qaida connections and knew they had entered this country in 2000, but simply failed to notify the FBI. The terrorists were therefore able to plan and carry out their attacks, undetected, right under the noses of American law enforcement authorities.

We’re not just talking one or two agents, either. According to the report, a total of 50 to 60 CIA officers knew of the intelligence on al-Hamzi and al-Mihdhar — and not one of them had the sense to call up the FBI and say: These two guys just came from a summit meeting of the world’s leading terrorism suspects. Maybe you’d better keep an eye on them.

Had they done so, of course, the FBI might easily have discovered them taking flight training, arranging money transfers, and communicating with fellow al-Qaida members in other parts of the country. And, just maybe, we never would have experienced the horror of Sept. 11.

CIA agents weren’t alone in neglecting their duties. The inspector general also faults leaders of the CIA, starting with then-Director George Tenet, for failing to recognize the significance of moves by terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, already well-known by the agency, and failing to take seriously the avalanche of threats picked up by the CIA during the summer months of 2001. The report further recommends that Tenet and others be held accountable for not doing their job to protect the United States.

Although his report was actually completed in 2005, the inspector general’s findings were only released this week. Embarrassed by its findings, the CIA managed to cover up the report for two years. It was finally released, over the objections of director Michael Hayden, by order of Congress. But Hayden has already announced he will take no disciplinary action against Tenet.

Amazing, isn’t it? Michael Vick will go to jail, and rightfully so, for killing dogs for sport. George Tenet was awarded the Medal of Freedom for making America a safe haven for terrorists.

The CIA inspector general’s report should trouble us for several reasons. First and foremost, because it confirms that Sept. 11 was both predictable and preventable, if only federal officials had been alert, alarmed and doing their jobs. We can only hope that George Tenet and other former CIA officers have a hard time sleeping at night, knowing the horror and bloodshed they might have prevented, but didn’t.

But the report is troubling, also, because it proves that the strong case made by President Bush for the Patriot Act and other preventive measures after Sept. 11 was phony. The evidence is in. It is not true, as the administration claimed, that the CIA and FBI lacked the necessary tools, prior to Sept. 11, to track down terrorists planning attacks against the United States. They had the tools. They simply didn’t use them.

Neither the Patriot Act nor the warrantless NSA wiretaps were necessary responses to Sept. 11. They were pure Big Brother: unjustified attempts to weaken civil liberties and strengthen presidential power, using Sept. 11 as an excuse.

Remember the intelligence briefing President Bush was given on Aug. 6, 2001, while vacationing on his Texas ranch? Headline: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Did he take any action? Did he make any calls? Did he demand any follow-up? No, the leader of the Free World went fishing. Fifty CIA agents and director George Tenet weren’t the only ones asleep at the switch before Sept. 11.

CIA Asleep At The Switch>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Translation

CIA anethsthetized by Bill Clinton appointees.

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Crime & Corruption

Title: Pulitzer Winner: Bill Clinton Decimated the CIA

Source: newsmax.com

URL Source: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/20/11545.shtml? s=et

Published: Apr 20, 2006

Author: Carl Limbacher - NewsMax.com Staff

Pulitzer Winner: Bill Clinton Decimated the CIA

Author James Risen won the Pulitzer Prize on Tuesday for his much ballyhooed New York Times report last December that revealed President Bush's previously secret terrorist surveillance program - a revelation he uncovered while researching his book "State of War."

In the same book, however, Risen makes an equally explosive claim about President Clinton's relationship with the CIA - which his editors at the Times have so far declined to cover.

Upon taking power in 1993, Risen reports, the Clinton administration "began slashing the intelligence budget in search of a peace dividend, and Bill Clinton showed almost no interest in intelligence matters."

The agency cutbacks combined with presidential disinterest took their toll almost immediately.

"Over a three-or-four-year period in the early-to-mid 1990s," reports Risen, "virtually an entire generation of CIA officers - the people who had won the Cold War - quit or retired. One CIA veteran compared the agency to an airline that had lost all of is senior pilots . . . "

After Clinton CIA Director John Deutch cashiered several senior officers over a scandal in Guatamala, the situation got even worse.

"Morale [at the CIA] plunged to new lows, and the agency became paralyzed by an aversion to high-risk espionage operations for fear they would lead to political flaps. Less willing to take big risks, the CIA was less able to recruit spies in dangerous places such as Iraq."

The Clinton era of risk aversion also hobbled CIA efforts to get Osama bin Laden. In early 1998, Risen says, the agency was prepared to launch a special operation to kidnap the al Qaeda chief in Afghanistan.

"To be sure the operation was high risk, and there was a strong possibility that it would be so messy that bin Laden would be killed rather than captured. [CIA Director George] Tenet and the CIA's lawyers worried deeply about that issue; they believed the covert action finding on al Qaeda that President Clinton had signed authorized only bin Laden's capture, not his death."

Frustrated by restrictions that made dealing with the big challenges too difficult, the agency turned its energy to lesser problems.

Reports Risen: "Thanks to Vice President Al Gore, for example, the CIA briefly made the global environment one of is priorities."

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Question: Are CIA people union employees?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

These agencies ( FBI, CIA, NSA) are excluded on the grounds of National secuity, e.g the security work exception in 7112(b)(6), of the Federal Labor Relations Authority Law.

Good Question: I don't think they are.

But they are working on it.

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U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Order Granting Application for Review March 30, 2007 (unpublished)

In this unpublished order, the Authority granted the Agency’s application for review of the Regional Director’s decision that four employees who work in the Agency’s Automated Booking System Program Management Office should not be excluded from a unit under § 7112(b)(6) of the Statute (which excludes employees who are engaged in “security work which directly affects national security.”). The Agency argues, among other things, that the Authority should reconsider its precedent and hold that employees who encumber positions identified as “sensitive” and/or hold security clearances entitling them to review classified information should automatically be excluded under § 7112(b)(6).

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:IQEP29yoHLIJ:www.ilrf.net/Case%2520Update.April%252011.doc+exception+in+7112(b)(6),&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

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