Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4680-1021689265-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 17 May 2002 19:42:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 19452 invoked by uid 510); 18 May 2002 02:34:27 -0000 Received: from n12.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.67) by all.net with SMTP; 18 May 2002 02:34:27 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4680-1021689265-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.194] by n12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 18 May 2002 02:34:25 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_3_2); 18 May 2002 02:34:24 -0000 Received: (qmail 55197 invoked from network); 18 May 2002 02:32:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 18 May 2002 02:32:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 18 May 2002 02:32:42 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g4I2YAZ20691 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 17 May 2002 19:34:10 -0700 Message-Id: <200205180234.g4I2YAZ20691@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 19:34:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] Some thoughts on the latest so-called scandal Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I find it interesting that in their effort to create controversy, the media seems to miss the point - seemingly every time. The latest Bush scandal is a prime example. Here's my take: 1) Nobody came up to GW on his ranch last August and told him that the Al Quada was planning to run two jumbo jets into the WTC and one into the Pentagon on 9/11. If they would have, he would have told someone to stop it from happening. 2) Intelligence almost never produces that sort of information. It produces lots of tidbits that, when put together and examined in context, produce a picture - like an oil painting, not like a photograph. 3) It is the role of intelligence analysts to assemble the picture and present it to decision makers and the role of those decision-makers to take action. For example: When the intel report in the FBI about Al Quada folks preparing to run planes into buildings showed up, it should have triggered an alert of some sort to all FBI and CIA agents on related efforts so they would be aware of the potential issues. This would have come along with the other 50 such alerts on that day. Then, when the guy was arrested (Massoui?), something should have clicked in one of the minds of the involved agents. They should have gone back and found the alert, correlated it, and produced a warning indicating that similar patterns should be sought throughout the US. This alert should have gone to several agencies - perhaps one of 5 that day, maybe fewer. Systematic searches should have been done with computer databases and on-the-ground personnel, producing several other correlated events. This should have generated a much more serious warning calling for far harsher action, like surveillance, covert searches, computer searches, wire taps, etc. 4) The breakdown came in the system of connecting the dots, from the top of the administration to the bottom, lots of folks should have been doing their job better. 5) Blame - in my view - always accrues to the people in charge at the time of the events. I know it is unfair, but that's how I see it. So Clinton was responsible for the attacks during his administration, and the economic boom, and the excesses, and so forth - Bush is responsible for what's happening today. If the intel community got weakened under Clinton - perhaps so perhaps not - it is irrelevant. When Bush took over, he failed to recognize and compensate for it, so it's his fault. Everyone is forgetting that things were going sour in the spring and summer of 2001 because of the weakness of US foreign policy. Now we learn that Bush was preparing to attack Afghanistan anyway - to go after bin Laden, etc. Someone someday will start to ask whether the previous year's efforts to abandon the leadership role of the US in the Middle East tended to encourage or discourage this attack, and whether there were lots of other dots not properly connected. At any rate, that's how I see it - opposing views welcomed. FC --This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to serve-- Fred Cohen Fred Cohen & Associates.........tel/fax:925-454-0171 fc@all.net The University of New Haven.....http://www.unhca.com/ http://all.net/ Sandia National Laboratories....tel:925-294-2087 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Take the Yahoo! Groups survey for a chance to win $1,000. Your opinion is very important to us! http://us.click.yahoo.com/NOFBfD/uAJEAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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