Posted on 08/25/2007 2:26:58 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Lowry: The CIA's record leading up to Sept. 11 was one of failure By Rich Lowry Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 09:07:06 AM MDT
The new report from the CIA's inspector general about the spy agency's pre-9/11 failings could be titled, ''What We Did During Our Holiday From History.'' The stretch between the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks was supposed to be a shiny new era of globalized peace and prosperity, to which an intelligence service was considered quaintly irrelevant.
The CIA conformed to the zeitgeist by remaining quaintly irrelevant. George Tenet presided over the agency, failing his way to the second-longest tenure of any director of central intelligence, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a $4 million book advance. He made the Peter Principle work for him not just by advancing to his level of incompetence, but by benefiting from it handsomely.
Congressional Democrats pushed for the release of the scathing IG report, completed back in June 2005, to embarrass the Bush administration. But most of the failures identified in the report took place during the Clinton administration, which set the CIA's skewed priorities and selected Tenet in the first place. President Bush should be embarrassed only because he didn't fire Tenet upon taking office or after 9/11, while Bush also has failed to undertake a serious retooling of the sclerotic bureaucracy that is the CIA.
Tenet took terrorism seriously, ''sounding the alarm about the threat to many different audiences,'' in the words of the report. Maybe he should have gone on a lecture tour. Where Tenet fell down was in managing his agency. The thought may be father to the deed, but without the actual deed, the thought is only political cover in after-the-fact memoirs.
Tenet insists that he had a ''robust plan'' against al-Qaida. In reality, he only thought he had. He directed that such a plan be formulated, but according to the IG report, it never happened. Worse, Tenet did not ''work with the National Security Council to elevate the relative standing of counterterrorism in the formal ranking of intelligence priorities.''
In Tenet's defense, he operated within the context of a Clinton administration that basically was uninterested in intelligence. Tenet notes that the intelligence community lost 25 percent of its personnel in the 1990s and ''tens of billions of dollars in investment compared with the 1990 baseline.'' He implored the administration for funding increases in 1998 and 1999, but had to go ''outside established channels to work with then-Speaker Gingrich to obtain a $1.2 billion budgetary supplemental.''
Even with more resources, his managers repeatedly moved funds from counterterrorism programs to other needs, without ever raiding other programs to fund counterterrorism, according to the IG report. What could be more important than counterterrorism? Analytic resources were poured into addressing more pressing matters like the Balkans and the environment.
After 9/11, Clinton officials and Tenet argued whether the CIA had been granted the authority to kill Osama bin Laden, with the Clintonites, in a bout of retrospective bloodlust, insisting that it had. The IG report finds that restrictions on the CIA killing bin Laden had been ''arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed'' for a brief period in late 1998 and early 1999 (how Clintonian). But CIA managers refused ''to take advantage of the ambiguities,'' and even if they had, the agency didn't have the covert-action capability to kill bin Laden. Such was life during history's holiday.
What's more scandalous is how the CIA has escaped serious reform even today. Two CIA directors in a row have resisted the IG report's recommendation for an accountability board to evaluate the pre-9/11 performance of CIA officials. That word - not ''board,'' but ''accountability'' - raises hackles at Langley, where everyone is above-average at fighting al-Qaida. Even though as many as 60 CIA employees knew that two of the hijackers were in the U.S. before 9/11 and no one managed to get the word to the FBI, CIA Director Michael Hayden thinks holding anyone accountable for that or other failures would be ''distracting.'' And so the band plays on.
Thanks for the new thread, Davey.
PIng to new thread
Hey RR
I think we are in for a ruff few months.
Stay Safe:)
The ineffectiveness of the CIA goes back to the 1970’s and the Church Committee which completely castrated the agency, causing the deaths of several dozen of our foreign operatives and collaborators resulting in friendly nations to stop supporting us because cooperating with the US means their work and often their operatives get exposed in the US media. For them it was hands off the US - we’ll do it ourselves. CIA has never recovered. President Bush has done an excellent job of putting the CIA on a solid footing but he and his appointees face an uphill battle with the established career employees and their media darlings..
LOL, this time I saw your message and only posted one after your posts.
Fine article and LOL, you even have the number of the thread right.
Thanks for keeping us on the ball.
Hello, Davey has started our new thread #10, posts until now are in our last [#9] thread.
Hope that you will join in with us and help fill it up, as that means that Davey will have to start us another fresh one.
My thanks to Davey for keeping this thread on the world of terror.
Stay safe, my friends.
Thank you for the new thread, it is perfect.
The prior threads in this series are:
World Terrorism prior threads:
WT Thread #1: [Started on January 1, 2006]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1550424/posts?page=4809
WT Thread #2: [The communist manifesto, muslim manifesto and list of elected in U.S. who belong to the Socialist party, on the first page of the thread]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1607641/posts?q=1&&page=4951
Thread #3:
Beginning of Israel/Lebanon War and so much more.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1650751/posts?q=1&&page=4601
Thread #4:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1679491/posts?q=1&&page=1
Thread #5:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1711256/posts?q=1&&page=1
Thread #6:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1754972/posts?q=1&&page=5151
Thread #7:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1791631/posts?q=1&;page=1
Thread #8:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1817890/posts?q=1&;page=1
Thread #9:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1853040/posts?q=1&;page=1
VEGAS BILLIONAIRE SELLS MGM STAKE TO DUBAI ROYAL FAMILY
Vegas Luxe Life with Robin Leach ^ | Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 9:13 am | Vegas Luxe Life with Robin Leach
Posted on 08/25/2007 2:22:10 PM PDT by Issaquahking
Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian and MGM’s Board of Directors are expected to announce today (WED) that certain members of the Royal Family of Dubai- a Mid-East oil-rich kingdom - are buying into MGM Mirage and its $7-billion City Center hotel-condo complex. My Wall Street sources are abuzz this morning saying the multi-billion dollar deals signal the next phase of corporate takeovers and foreign investment into the booming Vegas gaming and hospitality business.
Photo co: MGM
Kirkorian’s company, Tracinda that owns his share of MGM is reducing his stake from 54.15% to 51.65% in the transaction and Wall Street believes that Dubai World will ultimately buy all of Kerkorian’s stake in the future.
Bear Stearns Vegas watcher Joe Greff commented early this morning in a 4:55 a.m. email to his investors: “MGM’s stock closed last night (TUES) at $74.32. Dubai World will buy 14-million shares of MGM at $84 per share for a total of $1.2 billion in the open market and another $1.2 billion worth of shares directly from the company. Furthermore Dubai World will purchase a 50% share in MGM’s City Center project for just under $3-billion!”
Greff went on to say: “All in all, the deal will inject nearly $3.9B of cash into MGM. We believe this deal should be a positive for the stock, as it demonstrates value for the company and reduces development risk with selling half of City Center. Partnering with Dubai World should also help MGM penetrate international markets in which it currently does not have a presence. In addition, the deal immediately improves the company’s balance sheet, as it reduces leverage for other development deals, share buybacks, and/or special dividends.”
Greff has put a new price target of $95 on the stock before year-end. It is expected that all Vegas hotel stocks would rise at the Wall Street open this morning- and The Venetian opened hovering at the $100 mark just 5- days in advance of its grand gala opening of Sheldon Adelson’s new Cotai Strip megaplex in Macau. (See our Friday edition of Luxe Life for all the advance details of Sheldon’s superplan to bring his version of Venice to the Chinese colony when he opens his 2nd property there early next week).
The banker analyst concluded: “At this point, we do not foresee any regulatory issues with the deal.”
Its believed that MGM will use some of the proceeds from this deal for its planned partnership at the adjoining Circus Circus land block its assembled with Sol Kerzner who intends to build a version of his Bahamas resort, The Atlantis there. Ironically - or coincidentally- Kerzner has a resort in Dubai in partnership with certain members of the kingdom’s Royal Family. Some are speculating that he may well have played a role in this new mega-billion-dollar deal.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1886545/posts
The one, critical change needed by the CIA is much like what the US Army did a long time ago.
It used to be that all of the top officers in the Army were West Point graduates, but today, the vast majority are ROTC graduates from across the country. West Pointers are a decided minority.
As a result, the Army benefited by no longer being stuck in an institutional rut, their officer ranks filled with gentlemen who all shared the same outlook and education in military affairs. Instead, there was a revolution in innovative and unorthodox thinking—just what is needed to keep the US Army at its top game. Anymore, West Pointers enter the Army at a disadvantage, and must prove themselves over again to the ROTC graduates, if they expect to be respected for their leadership and initiative, and not be seen as someone who cannot be allowed to operate independently.
In the case of the CIA, it is plagued by its institutional rut of having much of its leadership come from only two schools, Yale and Harvard. For decades this has haunted the institution to the point where a conscious effort must be made to *exclude* graduates from these two schools, because they have failed to accomplish their mission.
By comparison, they are in disgrace, their failures amounting to what would be several lost major battles by the Army in a bloody war. Just replacing their commander is not enough. Their command and general staff need to be purged and retired, replaced by the initiative and innovation from graduates of other schools across the United States.
Yale and Harvard, just like West Point, had a good run, but what they produce is no longer satisfactory to manage an effective Central Intelligence Agency. They have lost a few battles too many.
KDWN .com on the radio news at 3 pm.
Carnival ship took all the passengers off, 1700 of them.
“Something was not right, something made them nervous”
Nothing has been found.
Carnival ship took all the passengers off, 1700 of them.
[Not much of a report, there is a video]
Melbourne Trucking School Shut Down
Last Edited: Friday, 24 Aug 2007, 10:18 PM EDT
Created: Friday, 24 Aug 2007, 10:18 PM EDT
Trucker Certifications
Melbourne, FL — The state says 7-hundred truck drivers have to re-take their certification tests because of safety questions.
I have not found the news release for the Carnival Cruise lines ship, in Florida that took all the passenger off.
It was not on the Fox half hour news.
granny
I find your statements very accurate, it would please me to see other departments cleaned out and fresh people come in.
We have indeed become a country, with lots of rotten people in the important places.
LOL, My opinion.
Mystery trader bets market will crash by a third
Renée Schultes
16 Aug 2007
Carry trade unwinds as yen hits one-year high
An anonymous investor has placed a bet on an index of Europe’s top 50 stocks falling by a third by the end of September, as world equity markets plunged for a third day and volatility hit a three-year high.
Related Stories
Managers cheer the dollar’s decline
23 Apr 2007
Market is living for the momentum
05 Mar 2007
US hit by investment outflow
16 Feb 2007
Traders miss out on dollar slide
30 Nov 2006
The mystery investor has bought put option contracts on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index that will result in a profit if it plunges to 2,800 or below by the end of September. Based on the 2,800 strike price, the position covers a notional €6.9bn, and potentially even more using a market price of about 4,100 when the trades were done on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The identity of the investor is unknown but market sources speculated it was either a large hedge fund hedging itself against deepening losses, or a long-only fund manager pressing the panic button to protect its gains.
The investor has bought a total of 245,000 put options on the index. The September put option with a 2,800 strike was the most popular DJ Eurostoxx 50 contract yesterday, according to data from Bloomberg.
Volatility in European equity markets has risen sharply this week as investors cut back on the amount of risk they are taking. The VSTOXX index, which measures the volatility of the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index, hit 34 this morning, which is more than double its three-year average.
Similarly the volatility of the US stock market was trading at almost three times its three-year average, hitting 30 yesterday.
However, both indices continue to trade below their 2002 highs.
European stock markets were trading down almost 3% at by 13:00 GMT today, after large drops in Asia and Australia overnight. The Australian market fell 300 points at one stage when futures trading was suspended for over an hour and traders were forced to hedge positions by selling physical stocks rather than futures.
An analyst at Goldman Sachs JB Were in Australia wrote: “I think I shall remember this day as the day that I saw the market go to hell, look into the abyss - didn’t like what it looked like and then came screaming back up as far away from there as it could get. ... It was a truly spooky day and I’ve seen a lot over the last 20 years but today will be one that anyone who saw it will never forget. But this is what market bottoms are made out of.”
The rise in volatility and risk aversion has also contributed to a sharp appreciation in the Japanese yen, which has been used to finance the so-called carry trade, where investors borrow in a low-yielding currency to invest in one with a higher-yield.
Analysts’ belief that the yen carry trade is set for a major unwinding has intensified today as the Japanese currency continued to rally in morning trade.
The yen strengthened today as it broke through several psychological barriers. The yen hit 113.60 against the dollar by 12:35 GMT, the first time in more than a year it has dropped below 114. The yen was substantially up against the dollar from yesterday, when it traded at above 116.
Simon Derrick, head of currency research at Bank of New York Mellon, said: “With any hope of even a brief bounce emerging in the yen crosses evaporating in the fierce glare of another horrible close in New York, it is clear that the vicious, self-reinforcing, downward spiral we were worrying about is already firmly established.”
http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=ushome&contentid=2448565379
What happened to 24 hour news on tv? There is also an airplane that some guy tried to open the door on while in flight.
Trying to find more. <<<
That must be something new, didn’t have it in the days that I owned a tv.
They say the news people take the weekend off.
I can’t find anything on the Carnival ship, it was in Florida, I think they said Jacksonville.....
6 in Wedding Party Dead in Truck Crash
Last Edited: Saturday, 25 Aug 2007, 4:46 PM EDT
Created: Saturday, 25 Aug 2007, 4:46 PM EDT
Credit: MyFox
By JEREMY HAINSWORTH
Associated Press Writer
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A pickup truck plowed through a crowd leaving a pre-wedding celebration in western Canada, killing six people and injuring 19, police said on Saturday.
The 71-year-old driver of a truck lost control and ran into 25 to 30 people who were walking along a rural road toward him, police in Abbotsford, British Columbia, said.
The victims had been at the bride’s parents’ house and were heading to another home, making their way along an unlit road lined with parked cars, according to police and a neighbor.
Continued...no alcohol or drugs involved.............
Hot Air Balloon Crash in Canada Kills 2, Injures 11
Last Edited: Saturday, 25 Aug 2007, 5:43 PM CDT
Created: Saturday, 25 Aug 2007, 12:13 PM CDT
08/25/2007 —
A hot air balloon caught fire over western Canada, forcing screaming passengers to leap to the ground, some with their clothes in flames, witnesses said. Police said two people died and 11 were injured.
Police said 12 passengers and a pilot were on board when the balloon crashed Friday evening in a recreational vehicle park in Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver.
[snipped]
Company spokesman John K. George said he does not know why the balloon caught fire shortly after takeoff.
“The company deeply regrets this evening’s incident and all injuries associated with it (and) inconvenience to those people being displaced,” George said.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
A similar incident occurred earlier this month in the central Canadian province of Manitoba, Manitoba, where 12 people were injured.
Interesting on the stocks, I read something last night, it said Soros was behind it.
From what I hear, we are about 50-50 on it, as there are some that want us to fail and some who do not.
I am not at all surprised at the mortgages failing, anyone could see that would happen, but even now I am still hearing the mortgage ads on the radio.
I have family members, who have taken out some of those creative loans and I fear for them.
There was the same on the Florida Carnival cruise ship, except now the Port authority says, “stay out of the way and let the bomb sniffing dogs do their job”.
And “Nothing has been found”.
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