Bob Graham recent interview

[lilfroggy]

Intelligence Matters

The former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the failures of the U.S. intel community and the need for reform.

Bob Graham
Interviewed By Jeff Fleischer

November 23, 2004


The Al Qaeda attacks of September 11 prompted a flood of questions as to why the U.S. intelligence community had failed to see them coming; and Sen. Bob Graham wanted some answers. The Florida Democrat, then chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, joined 36 other House and Senate members to form the 2002 congressional joint inquiry into where the intelligence agencies went wrong.

In his recent book, Intelligence Matters, Graham provides an inside account of what this inquiry found. Graham details examples of the agencies failing to connect the dots or adapt to the new threats represented by global terrorism. He shares his experiences researching intelligence failures and offers some recommendations for preventing future ones. And he takes the Bush administration to task for disengaging from the war against Al Qaeda in order to invade Iraq, a decision Graham voted against and memorably criticized on the Senate floor.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/11/11_401.html