I should probably point this out for future reference... the people in charge of the IC? They don't do the analysis; they just report it. Therefore, in actuality, the leaders of the IC know somewhat LESS than the lower ranking analysts.
Just a thought.
There is much truth to that; however, the further down the analysis chain you go, the less of the "big picture" is seen by that analyst. While there is some cross-pollination & feedback at every analysis level, it has to be limited in many ways. This is an inherent drawback of any security system, but unavoidable if some secrets are simply too critical to be widely passed around.
As the mountain of mostly-useless crud gets weeded and analyzed, going up the chain, it's still stove-piped to some extent until it gets to a point where someone looks at the open-source material, electronic intercepts, recce platform stuff, and material from covert sources -- plus the track record of the individual sources -- and makes an overall judgment. Sometimes the DCI makes the call, but in cases like Tenet, who had zero real experience in the intel world, he has to rely on the real spooks who are in a position to evaluate the covert sources.
One of the things that confuses the civilians, and especially the conspiracy groupies, is their failure to understand that some otherwise-unidentified "warning" is pure codswallop unless you know a LOT about it -- something that will seldom happen for open publication. It is not even easy for intelligence professionals, many of whom think that their personal favorite "source" is the next Penkovsky, to have a clear view of their own analysis.
Even assuming that some of these nebulous pre-911 "warnings" actually had some merit (and I have yet to see a clear example), none were specific enough to be considered "actionable" except in the broadest sense. The community had been warning for decades that cockpit doors should be hardened, but the idiots who own the airlines dragged their feet and basically did nothing. Should the FAA have simply ordered it? In hindsight, yes -- but the blood in the aisles of Congress over these "Gestapo tactics" would have delayed things equally long anyhow.
Dealing with intel issues is so bloody complex that I'm reluctant to even begin ... but since I've opened my mouth already, let me make one statement that should be obvious:
911 was going to happen, period, and absolutely nothing would have stopped it. The most that could have been accomplished was to change the specific form of attack. Our airline security was nearly nonexistent, so al-Qaeda took that easy route. If we'd hardened the procedures to the point they are now, another flashy operation would have been mounted, very possibly with far worse consequences. 3000 dead is a pretty easy figure to achieve, and the only reason the WTC & Pentagon targets were chosen is for their flashy photo-ops and propaganda value. And anyone who thinks they can't put another airliner into a skyscraper tomorrow simply doesn't understand how things work, and has no imagination whatsoever. The new rules ONLY lessen the chances that airline passengers will die in a terrorist attack; they do nothing whatsoever to stop planes from hitting buildings ... or power plants ... or stadiums full of football or baseball fans. Or far scarier scenarios that could easily result in the deaths of millions.
The most useful outcome from 9-11 would have been to allow American Airlines and United Airlines to go totally bankrupt and not bail out their massive liability -- this would have forced the remaining airlines to actually do real security improvements instead of the fig-leaf nonsense that actually has taken place. Not one taxpayer dollar should have been spent on survivor benefits, and allowing the government to dictate cockpit security procedures only guarantees that they won't work. A ten-year-old could write effective ones, but no government agency works at that high a level.
Classifying 9-11 as an "intelligence failure" is an easy shot, but a cheap one nonetheless. Is any successful terrorist attack a failure of the IC? Is anything less than 100% a failure? As long as we live in a society that is this open and unfettered by regulation, we'd better get used to the idea that we are going to be attacked. We don't even seem to be willing to take the easy, cheap steps to regulate our borders effectively, for fear of offending the Mexican government, the ACLU, or La Raza zealots -- yet we'll spend billions keeping boxcutters and nail files out of airplanes ... though I could board any airliner tomorrow with makeshift throat-cutters that work just as well as boxcutters, and not a peep would be heard from these airport security zombies.
In fairness, I should point out that I spent 20+ years in the intelligence community. I know the warts and weaknesses all too well, and there are plenty of them, though the most serious ones originate from Congressional interference and incompetence. I've been happily retired from the business now almost as long as I was in it, though I probably still maintain enough connections to be considered a bona fide NWO operative and government shill. I just wish my shill paychecks would start soon.
