Posted on 12/31/2009 9:59:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The finger-pointing began in earnest on Wednesday over who in the alphabet soup of American security agencies knew what and when about the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up an airliner.
But the harshest spotlight fell on the very agency created to make sure intelligence dots were always connected: the National Counterterrorism Center. The crown jewel of intelligence reform after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the center was the hub whose mission was to unite every scrap of data on threats and suspects, to make sure an extremist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber, would never penetrate the United States’ defenses.
“N.C.T.C. is supposed to be the nerve center,” said Amy B. Zegart, who studies intelligence at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s the fusion center of all fusion centers. So if something was missed, that’s where the blame is going to go.”
Officials at the counterterrorism center — a small agency in a modern glass building in suburban Virginia — maintained a stoic silence on Wednesday, noting that the review ordered by President Obama was still under way. But those who led the major studies of how the United States government failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks watched the unfolding story of the Christmas Day attack with growing dismay.
“It’s totally frustrating,” said Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the national Sept. 11 commission. “It’s almost like the words being used to describe what went wrong are exactly the same.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think the finger pointing needs to be directed toward the CIA.
Considering the Left practically drooled over the opportunity to one day blame Bush for a terrorist attack that ended up never again happening on his watch, I’m going to return the favor and point straight at Obama.
It helps that he does deserve quite a lot of blame.
And it was just a little while ago that I said....
“I think that there is a whole lot of CYA going on. The finger pointing is just really getting started.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2417789/posts?page=60#60
Nice to see some confirmation.
I keep hearing this case compared to the Richard Reid (shoe bomber) one as a way to equate it with failures under Pres. Bush. I don’t get it. Was Reid on a terror watch list for two years prior to the attempted attack? Was he reported to a U.S. Embassy a month prior? Unless he had been also been someone who was listed on a terror watch list and reported beforehand, I hardly see it as the same. Has the left really gotten that stupid?
Why?
The CIA passed the info on. It is their job to 'get' info, not to actually 'act' on it.
This is either massively more complex than it seems or there are a lot of stupid, simple minded folks involved.
Maybe both?
I fear they’ll use this to get more decent people out of the CIA. They’ll claim to be fixing the CIA (or other agencies) while what they are doing is coopting it even more.
I think these stories are part of the reason they are saying that.
Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: ‘I was visited by the FBI’
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_kurt_hask.html
Bomb plot ‘ringleaders’ were freed from Guantanamo Bay
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bomb-plot-ringleaders-were-freed-from-guantanamo-bay-1852811.html
clickable link
“...I’m going to return the favor and point straight at Obama.”
.
Sticks and stones....
They shouldnt finger point, they should be working on fixing the problem instead of wasting time blaming people. When it is fixed, then place blame.
Zero should fire Napolitano. The fact that she hasn’t resigned says volumes about her, nothing good. The CIA’s had a very bad week, but they said that they did inform Homeland Security/FBI about this Nigerian terrorist wannabe-pantie bomber. Islamofascists must be laughing themselves sick over American stupidity. Meanwhile Zero waits three days to react. Well, he’s ‘tired’, he needed a massage or more golf, whatever. He’s run out of time and excuses. Time to pack his bags and vacate the WH. And he can take Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the dem. cockroaches with him.
Gee, “the system” seemed to work pretty well all the time GWB and his people were running it.
Hmmmmm....
“Maybe W wasn’t so stupid and “he who belched” is the moronic-chimpy-idiot.
MEMO TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s your war now. Show us you are on America’s side: R-E-T-A-L-I-A-T-E. Retaliate harshly. Do it now!
The state sponsors of terrorism knew with Bush at the helm the US was off-limits. Didn't matter the country of origin of the attackers nor their stated political affiliations.
The next country on the list was going to be leveled. The next regime hunted and killed.
With Obama, there IS NO PENALTY for the state sponsors.
“I think the finger pointing needs to be directed toward the CIA.
—
Why? “
==
Because the CIA is loaded, packed with career politicians, mostly Democrat types always looking for a way to advance their political aims.
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