Why U.S. spy effort is failing badly
- Thread starter OntarioVanMan
- Start date
greg334
Veteran Expediter
Thanks, Ican tell you one really important flaw in this entire 'spy' thing that is not in that article the fact that an outside think-tank can have access to the people themselves and the people open their mouths about the problems.
What happened to the need to know and secrecy?
The enemy isn't a bunch of illiterate Afghans running around in their traditional garments shooting in the air but rather some really smart people who are well educated and know how to keep a secret.
What happened to the need to know and secrecy?
The enemy isn't a bunch of illiterate Afghans running around in their traditional garments shooting in the air but rather some really smart people who are well educated and know how to keep a secret.
No kidding..everyones more concerned about getting their names in the press...then security.
All systemic problems in any organization start at the top. You can have the odd issue once in a while but when they seem to never end and it is always the same thing, look at the top.
Obama has a total disrespect of the military and the intell services. To him they are at best an evil that he needs for the time being. He thinks that he is much smarter than they are, after all, he is a thinker, not a mindless brute like they are.
Clinton felt the same way. He too ignored what he was told and his stupidity led to 9/11. The mess that this "nut" of a CIC is causing will make 9/11 look like a picnic.
It is not those working in the business, it is the commander.
Obama has a total disrespect of the military and the intell services. To him they are at best an evil that he needs for the time being. He thinks that he is much smarter than they are, after all, he is a thinker, not a mindless brute like they are.
Clinton felt the same way. He too ignored what he was told and his stupidity led to 9/11. The mess that this "nut" of a CIC is causing will make 9/11 look like a picnic.
It is not those working in the business, it is the commander.
hexmode
Technoweenie
If this were the case, then it'd be easy to blame Bush for 9/11. Or the shoe bomber.
Bush had not been in long enough. Bush had taken over from Clinton. We had 8 years of Clinton destroying the intell/military services. When my job was eleminated I was working counter-terrorism. That was the first intell program cut back or closed.
It takes 15 years of work and training to get an intell agent up to speed if they are a new hire. We got rid of thousands of fully trained agents over the 8 years of Clinton, not to mention physical programs cancelled and the low moral that goes along with working for a boss that "loathes" your work. Assuming that Bush started hiring new agents on the same day he took office the most he could have got on board prior to 9/11 was about none.
It took 14 months when I hired on and I already had 3 years experience and still held some of the needed clearences. those new agents that got one during Bush are ten years away from being good. Now Obama is doing a Clinton and running agents out. They never learn.
It takes 15 years of work and training to get an intell agent up to speed if they are a new hire. We got rid of thousands of fully trained agents over the 8 years of Clinton, not to mention physical programs cancelled and the low moral that goes along with working for a boss that "loathes" your work. Assuming that Bush started hiring new agents on the same day he took office the most he could have got on board prior to 9/11 was about none.
It took 14 months when I hired on and I already had 3 years experience and still held some of the needed clearences. those new agents that got one during Bush are ten years away from being good. Now Obama is doing a Clinton and running agents out. They never learn.
greg334
Veteran Expediter
Layout,
I would defend Bush had it not been for an interview with Cheney and the often missed and ignored comment he made about transition teams and discoveries made in 1999/2000
See the administration knew about the "wall" and didn't do much about it. They continued a lot of the policies of Clinton's, even the Iraq one because after the big fight over the election, they thought it would be wise to change things slower than normal and this left us open to the attack. I can't see it happening any other way - from January to August, they had a lot of time to fix the real problems with intelligence - outside of the normal arrogance and interdepartmental posturing.
The real tragedy about 9/11 is not what was done or wasn't done but the 9/11 commission and the politics involved. The architect of the wall was sitting on the commission and Sandy Berger committed acts of espionage during war time and Bush and his administration didn't fight either serious issue one bit. Gerolick should have not been sitting in any position to defend or cover up things but to answer to the mess she created and Berger should have face the same thing as McVie face - death.
I would defend Bush had it not been for an interview with Cheney and the often missed and ignored comment he made about transition teams and discoveries made in 1999/2000
See the administration knew about the "wall" and didn't do much about it. They continued a lot of the policies of Clinton's, even the Iraq one because after the big fight over the election, they thought it would be wise to change things slower than normal and this left us open to the attack. I can't see it happening any other way - from January to August, they had a lot of time to fix the real problems with intelligence - outside of the normal arrogance and interdepartmental posturing.
The real tragedy about 9/11 is not what was done or wasn't done but the 9/11 commission and the politics involved. The architect of the wall was sitting on the commission and Sandy Berger committed acts of espionage during war time and Bush and his administration didn't fight either serious issue one bit. Gerolick should have not been sitting in any position to defend or cover up things but to answer to the mess she created and Berger should have face the same thing as McVie face - death.
greg334
Veteran Expediter
Jamie Gorelick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This seems to explain it the overall in the best way.
Greg, I am not so much defending Bush. I was just trying to point out just how long it takes to get agents truly up to speed.
Oh sure, they can learn the "basics" fairly quickly, but, learning a "target" to the point where your "gut" knows what is up takes years of work, starting from the bottom up. There is no other good way to learn it.
Those "wizz kids" that they started bringing in towards the end of my career, being put in charge of departments with no experience in the field were done a great disservice. It no only hurt their careers and developement but it put lives at risk and contributed, even to this very day, to some of the problems facing our agencies.
Oh sure, they can learn the "basics" fairly quickly, but, learning a "target" to the point where your "gut" knows what is up takes years of work, starting from the bottom up. There is no other good way to learn it.
Those "wizz kids" that they started bringing in towards the end of my career, being put in charge of departments with no experience in the field were done a great disservice. It no only hurt their careers and developement but it put lives at risk and contributed, even to this very day, to some of the problems facing our agencies.