The Gamut

The New York Times > Washington > Sept. 11 Panel Cites C.I.A. for Failures in Terror Case:

George J. Tenet and his deputies at the Central Intelligence Agency were presented in August 2001 with a briefing paper labeled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly" about the arrest days earlier of Zacarias Moussaoui, but did not act on the information, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Wednesday.

Al Qaeda Unchecked For Years, Panel Says (washingtonpost.com):

U.S. intelligence services failed to recognize the emergence of the al Qaeda terrorist network until more than a decade after it was founded in 1988, playing down a tide of reports that documented the danger posed by the group, according to findings released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

This revelation from the 9/11 Commission lead Tina Brown to opine:

Maybe part of the thrill of hearing Donald Trump utter the words "You're fired" on "The Apprentice" has to do with the fact that in public life no one ever seems to get canned.

She then remarks:

"In Washington, when people aren't fired it's because they have protection," says Gary Hart, the Cassandra of 9/11 who with Warren Rudman authored the National Security Commission report -- the one that warned in January 2001 that Americans would die in large numbers on American soil unless we woke up. "Two years ago I assumed the director of the CIA, for a start, would be fired for the failures of 9/11. When he wasn't, my antennae went up. I began to assume he had some insurance in the form of warnings he had issued, and indeed it turned out to be true."

Over the Easter weekend, my two brothers and I got into a loud discussion about this (which would have been even louder if we didn't all agree with each other.) We were all baffled by the fact that nobody has had their heads handed to them over this debacle. It struck us that somebody would have been the goat in any other circumstance. Our first suspect was also Tenet, but then we thought that maybe he had something on Bush that forced the administration to be more lenient. Now, I know that Tenet and his people had sent Bush and his cronies numerous warnings.

Articles presented to top officials contained headlines such as: "bin Laden planning multiple operations." "bin Laden public profile may presage attack." "Bin Laden networks plans advancing."

Heck, one of the reports was entitled Bin Laden threats are real. How much more job security does Tenet need.

So the question then becomes, what does Condi have on Georgie?

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