Looking for Threats in All the Wrong Places

[dennis4868]

Looking for Threats in All the Wrong Places
By Joseph Cirincione

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told on the morning of Sept. 11 that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, he paused, then continued his morning intelligence briefing, according to the 9/11 Commission.

It wasn't until a third plane slammed into the Pentagon that Rumsfeld jumped into action, even assisting with rescue efforts. A few hours later, he wondered aloud to his staff whether the attack would allow the United States to strike at Saddam Hussein, not just Osama bin Laden.

In some ways, Rumsfeld's response tells us all we need to know about what went wrong with our government's policies in 2001. We were unprepared for the threats we faced, were slow to comprehend the meaning of the attack, and in planning our counterattack, almost immediately began focusing again on the wrong threat.

Why was this so? The 9/11 Commission concludes that it was a "failure of imagination" that prevented government leaders from understanding the gravity of the threat they faced.

The commissioners produced an excellent report, but this conclusion is a political cop-out. The commission focused too narrowly on intelligence policy, management and capabilities. The larger picture before Sept. 11 was one of strategic failure caused in great part by partisan political fights that distorted U.S. intelligence and defense assessments, fundamentally misleading and misdirecting national security resources.

more here....http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=print&id=15813