Brave New World by Mike Moran (on War on Terror cuurent status)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4654114/

Mike Moran has some interesting points re War on Terror, Bush Response, and how the media currently tells us nothing.

Until I read this I had not heard much about the May,2001,Dick Cheney meeting with GOP Gov. Jim Gilmore, head of an obscure commission that had just issued a report six months earlier “Toward a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.” and the reports executive summary, released in December 2000, where Gilmore wrote: “The potential for terrorist attacks inside the borders of the United States is a serious emerging threat. … Because the stakes are so high, our nation’s leaders must take seriously the possibility of an escalation of terrorist violence against the homeland.” - and Bush's lack of follow-up on this report?

Indeed until I read this I had not heard about the bipartisan Markle Task Force report on our revamped and battle-ready U.S. intelligence network - where the repor criticizes the administration for making the intelligence problem worse by creating new agencies with overlapping jurisdictions — the Terrorist Threat Assessment Center (TTIC) and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) office, saying “The very fact of the TTIC’s creation has caused confusion within the federal government and among state and local governments about the respective roles of TTIC and DHS,” the report says. “Moreover, neither the TTIC nor the DHS has gotten very far in putting in place the necessary staff or framework for analyzing information and sharing it broadly among the relevant federal, state and local agencies.”

Mike Moran reports "Far from being more coordinated, others say, intelligence agencies proliferated after 9/11, allowing one agency to trump another with an analysis more in line with the wishes of the political leadership. At the Pentagon, for instance, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created a new “undersecretary of defense for intelligence” post for one of his closest advisors, Steve Cambone, which many in the field regarded as an effort to ensure intelligence can never be centralized under the CIA director. “The danger, of course, is that when the administration doesn’t like what CIA is telling it, like on Iraq, it can get a different view from intel shops under defense,” says a 9/11 committee source. Most also view the FBI, in particular, as an agency that still is not suited for counter-terrorism. Says commissioner Lehman: “The attacks of 9/11 exposed a totally dysfunctional government. The intelligence community is in drastic need of repair. There are many, many shortcomings.” <snip>

A very Long read - but Brave New World by Mike Moran is one of the best reasons to visit the MSNBC web site!