WaPo: Intelligence Failure? Blair could not control this country's Israelis.
Mort Zuckerman
lPick...@cdc.gov, Durlan...@yale.edu, Aa...@columbia.edu,
gary_w...@nymc.edu, scientifi...@ostp.gov,
pkru...@princeton.edu, Stanle...@fiu.edu,
emcsw...@niaid.nih.gov, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
michae...@po.state.ct.us, con...@po.state.ct.us, executive-
edi...@nytimes.com, managin...@nytimes.com, news-
ti...@nytimes.com, biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, illino...@aol.com, jle...@courant.com,
tinaj...@yahoo.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, p...@allegorypress.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, brans...@comcast.net,
vts...@comcast.net, o...@po.state.ct.us, freet...@charter.net,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov,
Robert....@yale.edu, edi...@greenwich-post.com,
harol...@yale.edu, sedm...@nswbc.org, rrmcg...@aol.com,
fr...@nytimes.com, dpr...@stmartin.edu, saint....@sbcglobal.net
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, amcg...@rms-law.com, rjmu...@aol.com,
paulcrai...@yahoo.com, criminal...@usdoj.gov,
karla.d...@usdoj.gov, christophe...@usdoj.gov,
richar...@yale.edu, harol...@yale.edu, james.p...@yale.edu,
inq...@aldf.com, ly...@idsociety.org, meganm...@theatlantic.com
Subject: WaPo Intelligence Failure? Blair could not control this
country's Israelis.
Date: May 22, 2010 10:41 AM
ARTICLE BELOW
=========================
Uh, no.
This confusing fluffery is intended to
mask the real problem: Israelis in America
(Sibel Edmonds and the Israeli "Turks"
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.diseases.lyme/browse_thread/thread/77dbaa68f7d74fca?hl=en#
and the Lyme Cryminal Israelis can do
whatever they want in America, screwing
up not only medical research but bioweapons
(the Mechanisms of Stealth Disablers) and
are out of control. And Blair was not
allowed to control them.
The "Government" has no intellectual
credibility or talent, no matter what
the topic, but especially as re the major
ones: the Physics of Economies (War/Oil
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.diseases.lyme/msg/8591b95e0ece47f7?dmode=source
or Medical Science. The WOTUS (World
Outside the United States) totally does
*not* believe a nanogram of USA-bullcrap
endofdiscussion.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
================================================
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104939_pf.html
Blair's resignation may reflect inherent conflicts in job of
intelligence chief
By Greg Miller and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010; A01
As the intelligence community was rebuilt after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks, two additions were seen as crucial to addressing systemic
breakdowns: a new director to force often-squabbling agencies to work
together, and a counterterrorism center to connect threat data dots.
But developments this week underscored the extent to which those two
institutions have struggled to carry out their missions, and are
increasingly seen as hobbled by their own structural flaws.
The resignation of Dennis C. Blair as director of national
intelligence Friday means the position will soon be turned over to a
fourth occupant in little more than five years. Current and former
U.S. intelligence officials said the job has come to be viewed as a
thankless assignment -- lacking in authority, yet held to account for
each undetected terrorist plot.
"The DNI doesn't have any authority to make things happen," said Mark
M. Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official and the chief executive of
the Intelligence & Security Academy. "If you look at who we've had,
we've been extremely lucky in the people who've accepted the job.
Three of the brightest people I've ever met. But they can't make the
job work. At a certain point, you have to ask yourself: Is it the
job?"
The DNI oversees 16 intelligence agencies, including the CIA. But the
director has only partial budget authority over the sprawling
bureaucracy he leads. Thus, some intelligence experts say, whoever
holds the job will lack the influence envisioned when the office was
created.
The National Counterterrorism Center, established after the 2001
attacks to collate information from across agencies and analyze
threats, is under the same scrutiny. Two narrowly averted terrorist
attacks in the past five months have prompted criticism of the center,
part of the Office of the DNI. A Senate report released this week
concluded that the center was still "not organized adequately to
fulfill its mission" six years after it was launched.
The failings have caught the attention of the Obama administration.
One of the first tasks given to the President's Intelligence Advisory
Board when it was assembled in December was to seek ways to bridge the
gap between the expectations and authorities in the intelligence
director's job.
Blair's colleagues acknowledged that he struggled with the political
aspects of the position. But they said he was particularly frustrated
by what he considered micromanagement from the White House and a lack
of adequate budget and hiring authority.
Early problems
The leading candidate to replace Blair is James Clapper, a retired Air
Force lieutenant general who has led two large intelligence agencies
and currently serves as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
Clapper is capable of bringing "a sense of purpose, mission and
identity" to the director position, said a former high-ranking U.S.
intelligence official who worked closely with him. But, the former
official said, "without some support from the president or structural
change, you're not going to see a much different outcome."
Problems with the position have prompted a series of high-level
candidates to turn it down. Among the first to do so was Robert M.
Gates, now the secretary of defense. As a former CIA director, he
opposed the legislation that established the DNI. U.S. officials
acknowledged this week that they had approached former senator Chuck
Hagel (R-Neb.) about replacing Blair, but that Hagel made it clear he
would decline.
Creating a powerful intelligence director was one of the main
recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11
attacks. The commission's report called for the director position to
be lodged inside the White House, but that provision was quickly
dropped when Congress took up intelligence reform legislation.
Congress also struggled to define what the director should be
empowered to do. The law provides the authority to "develop and
determine" the national intelligence budget, but the director merely
"participates" in setting the spending for military intelligence
programs that are set by the defense secretary. Those agencies account
for about a third of the more than $70 billion allocated annually to
the intelligence community.
Blair and his predecessors struggled to straddle competing aspects of
the job -- serving as the overall manager of the diverse intelligence
community while also serving as the president's principal intelligence
adviser. Blair emphasized the community-management aspect, officials
said, a choice that may have cost him the ability to foster closer
ties with Obama and his closest aides.
Indeed, Blair lost several turf skirmishes to someone who was supposed
to be his subordinate, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta. Even before he
came into the job, Blair was warned that it would likely be the case.
After accepting the position, Blair met with the outgoing director,
Michael McConnell. "They will recruit him," McConnell said of Panetta,
according to a source who witnessed the exchange, meaning that
Panetta's loyalties would soon be to the agency.
"My view is that the only person who might have the horsepower with
the White House to turn the DNI into an effective position would be
Leon Panetta," said Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.), the ranking
Republican on the Senate intelligence committee. "He just laughed when
I told him that."
Asserting authority
Blair's attempts to assert authority over CIA operations and certain
overseas assignments rankled some within the intelligence community.
"The DNI exists to set policy. It was never intended to collect
intelligence or run operations," said a U.S. intelligence official,
speaking on condition of anonymity because of interagency
sensitivities. "It's supposed to be a guiding strategic hand across
agencies, not a top-down command authority."
Colleagues of Blair, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, said he chafed at
such descriptions of the job. Blair had intended to serve out a four-
year term in the position, officials said. That he was pushed out has
as much to do with his political alienation from Obama as it does the
intelligence failures that cropped up during his tenure, they said.
By contrast, Michael Leiter, the director of the National
Counterterrorism Center, is said to remain in good standing with the
administration despite mounting criticism of his agency in recent
months. The center was intended to fuse foreign and domestic
intelligence on terrorist threats, and to supply policymakers with
analysis and expertise on key terror-related issues.
But the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that the
center mishandled multiple clues that might have prevented a Nigerian
man from smuggling a bomb aboard an aircraft bound for Detroit on
Christmas Day. An attachment to the report said officials at the
center seemed confused about its role. "Despite its statutory
mission," the attachment said, "NCTC did not believe it was the sole
agency in the [intelligence community] for piecing together all
terrorism threats."
Defenders of the center said internal changes after the Detroit
incident are bringing tangible if not publicly visible results. And
they said the NCTC has been involved in thwarting several plots,
including one to attack the New York subway system, and terrorist
threats in Denmark and Germany.
Staff writers Peter Finn and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this
report.
Post a Comment
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci