[lawdog]

There are quite a few credible people who are prepared to testify that Mohamed Atta was identified long before 9/11," he said. "Now maybe there's more than one Mohamed Atta. Or maybe there's some mistake. But that's what we're trying to find out."

MEANS and METHODS is not what this is about...some on this site believe it is necessary to kill this in the interest of national security. A bunch of somebodies dropped the ball and now the institutions are looking for a new pair of Kimmel(s) and Short(s).

[Dolphy]

A bunch of somebodies dropped the ball

And this is news? We all know somebody dropped the ball, starting with the man in the Oval Office who did nothing of any consequence to cope with the ongoing and growing threat. We all know that massive amounts of information were spread over countless intelligence operations. We all know about the wall.

After hearing Leahy's comments about the need to watch for abuses in the use of data mining, I'm quite happy the Pentagon sent up guys to say they follow all of the rules.

[popdonnelly]

A bunch of somebodies dropped the ball and now the institutions are looking for a new pair of Kimmel(s) and Short(s).

The first part of your sentence is certainly true. But, as for looking for scapegoats, my impression has been that there's been a reluctance to blame anybody for intelligence failures leading to 9/11, even in private, and even when fully justified. I can't think of anyone who's been taken to task - except of course Bush, which given the current Democratic Party and the makeup of the news media is a given. Even the housecleaning at CIA - assuming there is one - is probably more a result of Tenet spouting off about WMDs, rather than an effort to improve intelligence gathering.