Calling all czars - Oversimplifying the (Intel) failures of 9/11

[papau]

Mike has a great line -"The proposed 911 Intel solution will let us know who to fire the next time America is attacked" and indeed that may be all that we are willing or should change, since I'm not sure if I am willing to tollerate the government getting all the information that is available about me and joining that information into one new database, creating a public profile in a domestic spy agency where one did not exist before - I do not tolerate being watched all that well. You would think that conservative GOPers wouls join with former GOP Governor of Virginia Jim Gilmore in suggesting we need a discussion before we allow the terrorists to "change what we are as Americans, we should do it with our eyes opened."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5462691/

Calling all czars - Oversimplifying the (Intel) failures of 9/11
By Michael Moran Brave New World columnist MSNBC

July 19, 2004 <snip>A single, somewhat superficial fix for all that went wrong that awful September day in 2001 is in the offing: the creation of an “intelligence czar” with authority over all of the many agencies now charged with intercepting, analyzing and collecting data on threats to the nation.

With the president’s blue ribbon commission on the 9/11 attacks due to release its final recommendations later this week, the leak of this choice morsel to The New York Times framed the debate over the greatest tragedy in American history in the most simplistic possible terms. It is as if, having searched in vain for a slam-dunk scapegoat these last few years, the nation is just too weary to follow the complex twists and turns any longer. As one well-placed source put it, the beauty of the “intelligence czar” proposal is that, even if it doesn’t (end the mistrust in the sprawling intelligence community or) make America less vulnerable to a second 9/11 event, “at least we’ll know just who to fire next time it happens.” <snip>

Sincere people exist on both sides of this argument. Yet the focus on creating an "intelligence czar" is viewed by many who have studied the failings of 9/11 as something like offering a Band-Aid to a cancer patient.

“I think it would be just fine, maybe even a good idea,’ says an intelligence official who requested anonymity. “But you cannot do anything worthwhile without some accountability. Where has there been accountability? Changes are being fought tooth and nail by all parties, and in most cases the same people are still sitting behind the same desks. Even (CIA Director George) Tenet’s resignation really wasn’t about 9/11 — it was about Iraq.” <snip>