Cover Up:Senate-House Investigation of Intelligence Failure led by Tenet's Long-time Subordinate

Center for Security Policy ^ | 2002-02-13 | Center for Security Policy

[Plummz]

(Washington, D.C.): So much for a rigorous review of the policy and other failures that contributed to the U.S. intelligence community's inability to detect and prevent the deadly attacks of September 11th. No sooner had members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee's decided that these problems required a comprehensive review -- a review that would almost certainly implicate CIA Director George Tenet for his role in implementing defective policies, if not in every case initiating them -- than they turned over its conduct to one of Mr. Tenet's most trusted subordinates: L. Britt Snider.

This personnel decision sets the stage for a whitewash of epic proportions -- as if Sen. Sam Ervin had hired John Erlichman to run the Watergate investigation or Ken Lay's general counsel were tapped to run all the congressional investigations into the Enron debacle.

These invidious comparisons are hardly exaggerations. Britt Snider was, until last year, the Inspector General of the Tenet CIA. From 1997-98 he served as Special Counsel and advisor to Mr. Tenet. From 1989 to 1992, he was general counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when Mr. Tenet was its Staff Director. It is hard to imagine how such an individual could bring the sort of independence and dispassionate objectivity to the task that the Committee so clearly requires -- especially with respect to one of the Clinton and serving CIA Director, whose activities and judgment most demands the Congress' consideration.

It is, moreover, unclear at this writing whether Mr. Snider will be allowed to hire the rest of the staff charged with conducting this investigation. If so, it is entirely possible that none of those retained for that purpose will be able or willing to find fault with the intelligence community's past direction, priorities or conduct -- let alone that of the elected and appointed officials whose political and policy proclivities appear to have contributed to the 9/11 failure.

The Bottom Line

If the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are determined to give a complete pass to George Tenet and the direction he gave the community over the past five years, they might as well spare the taxpayer the expense of going through the motions of an investigation. If, on the other hand, they really do want to learn and apply the lessons of September 11th, they would be well advised to secure the services of those who have at least as much expertise in the field of intelligence as Mr. Snider, but not his disabling baggage of past institutional and personal loyalties.

[rdavis84]

Thanks for the good link to the Toronto Star article. That cures that detail.

[DLfromthedesert]

I respectfully disagree. American citizens are being mauled and robbed at airports by non-citizens in the name of "security"; we have people clamoring for national IDs; we've had a law passed that nukes our Fourth Amendment Rights; we have police watching us with cameras, all because of 9/11.

We have EVERY right to know who screwed up and why. Furthermore, I don't trust any of these clowns to round up terrorists. Notice how we've expelled all illegals after 9/11 ....NOT!! Au contraire, we have the Prez clamoring to make illegals legal, and our borders are as porous as ever.

[rdavis84]

From the Toronto Star article ---

"The man telling the tale in sworn court affidavits is Delmart Edward Vreeland, who faces credit fraud charges in Canada and in the United States, where officials are attempting to extradite him."

Why would "officials" be attempting to extradict him if Canada is going to try him on the same allegations? The U.S. could file for extradition anytime after/during  the "trial", couldn't they?

"In his affidavit, he says he tried to warn Canadian intelligence about possible terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, along with targets in Ottawa and Toronto, but was written off as a petty criminal. So he wrote the warning on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to jail guards a month before the attacks. They opened the letter Sept. 14 and immediately forwarded the information to Ottawa."

It would seem that's very easy to verify. It's stated as fact that the guards forwarded it to Ottawa after holding it for a month and then reading it.

[lawdog]

On the mornimg of 9-11-01 as I sat in the EOC, my co-workers turned to me and asked, What do you think ?" I replied , Today you've seen the greatest Itell failure since the 'suprise attack' on Pearl Harbor. Heads should roll at the CIA,FBI,NSA etc. but don't hold your breath. I hate being a prophet.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Another reason Tenete has to go - along with his assistant.

[mindprism.com]

Of course, the CIA and the FBI need a complete review and over-haul, but not now, not in public. We need to depend on the credibility of the CIA and FBI to prosecute terrorists. If we start to undermine the credibility of these agencies, we will be udermining the case against terrorism.

So we postpone fixing the deficiencies in order to artificially maintain public credibility?

The popular illusion is more important than the functional reality?

[KirkandBurke]

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek about FR and how "uncomfortable" stories sometimes disappear. It was pretty clear that it was an FR deletion as the message was "this thread has been deleted." Sometimes my sarcasm is a bit too oblique.