Tenet knows he doesn't have what he needs, but does he know what he needs?
Why does it not surprise me that we're still not ready? Because the officials in charge are still not acknowledging the sources and roots of terrorism, and how terrorists are recruited. How can we combat this threat effectively of we refuse to look squarely at where it comes from? All the organizational and funding fixes that are being bandied about now still don't get to the heart of the matter. Terrorists can still be recruited and formed ideologically in any mosque. Arrest the old ones, and new ones will appear.
From AP:
WASHINGTON - CIA director George Tenet predicted Wednesday it will take "another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine service our country needs" to combat al-Qaida and other terrorist threats."The same can be said for the National Security Agency, our imagery agency and our analytic community," Tenet testified before the commission investigating the worst terror attacks in the nation's history. ...
"While we now know that al-Qaida was formed in 1988, at the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the intelligence community did not describe this organization, at least in the documents we have seen, until 1999," the report said.
As late as 1997, it said, the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center "characterized Osama bin Laden as a financier of terrorism."
At the same time, though, the report said intelligence had recently received information revealing that bin Laden headed his "own terrorist organization" and had been involved in a number of attacks. These included one at a Yemen hotel where U.S. military personnel were quartered in 1992; the shooting down of Army helicopters in Somalia in 1993; and possibly the 1995 bombing of an American training mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard.
Our Universities need to stop taking donations from Saudi Arabia for one thing. The donations are taken and Middle Eastern studies centers are being built with the funds. This needs to stop.
This will eliminate the need or some of the need for Middle Easterners to come here to go to school, then turn around and call for intifada like Hatem Bazian, or the idiot that on trial right now for recruiting terrorists on the web. What is he, a 34 year old college student? Give us a break..The Saudi pricks are not our friends, period. We don't owe any foreigners an education when we have our own kids to educate first.
9-11-01 changed the world, and our immigration policies need to change with the results of that day.
This won't stop all of them from coming in here, but it'll stop many. The time for being nice and tolerant has passed us by. It's now a game of survival, and we shouldn't be letting our enemy in the front door.
Any mosque can become a terror-recruitment center. Clerics can issue fatwas. It's a simple as that.
Nothing of consequence against this threat can really happen, especially domestically, unless and until there is a clear unequivocal statement that ISLAM itself is the problem.
We all have said this many times in many ways. Then there is an article like "The Ethos Of Islam" (April 13, dhimmiwatch) that says in many well chosen words what you and I have been saying: Islam is a totalitarian death cult that will to destroy the world to make it 'pure'. Don't you just want to scream?
The most important tool that the intelligence community lacks is the presence of an administration and a population that clearly understand the nature of the enemy we face.
Until and unless we can ACCURATELY AND FULLY define the problem, we cannot solve it.
It's going to be a long, slow, war.
four planes ....over 3000 deads...illiterate westerners..bunch of hyennas..menn IT WAZ A SMART PLAN...!!
there's that alien sending garbled messages again. i'm beginning to think it's an enemy! wow, we're so scared of you.
there's that alien sending garbled messages again. i'm beginning to think it's an enemy! wow, we're so scared of you. NOT!!!!!!
on second thought: hey, garbled alien, here are some numbers for you
2 despotic regimes overthrown
10/1 ratio of enemy-coalition dead
2/3 al qaeda top brass dead or imprisoned
45 of 55 top iraqi baathists dead or imprisoned
you better watch out, alien, if you survive, it may be because you're lucky enough to get a one-way ticket to guantamo bay. at least you will eat well and be in tropical weather.
oh, and alien, one more thing
We're just gettin' started!