Wiki Editor Helps Reveal Pre-9/11 CIA Mistakes

An anonymous reader writes "Kevin Fenton was reading the Department of Justice's 2004 Inspector General report on pre-9/11 intelligence failures. Parts of it didn't make sense to him, so he decided to add the information in the report to Paul Thompson's 9/11 timeline at the wiki-style website History Commons. Eventually, Fenton's work led him to uncover the identity of a CIA manager who ran the Bin Ladin unit before 9/11, when agents there deliberately withheld information about two 9/11 hijackers from the FBI. That manager was named Richard Earl Blee and he is now the subject of a documentary by Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, of secrecykills.org, who confirmed his identity using techniques right out of the 70s film All the President's Men. Blee, along with Cofer Black and George Tenet, have found the work disturbing enough to release a joint statement denying some of the allegations."

Comments

So what is new?

[JoshuaZ]

As far as I can tell, this is just one more example of how turf wars between the different agencies caused severe information gaps before 9/11. That was obviously a problem. However, after the last decade of the Patriot Act, I'm sufficiently worried by the government information sharing as part of a wider pattern, that part of me wants to go back to the silly turf wars as a de facto restraint on various government agencies becoming too powerful or having access to things they shouldn't.

But there's no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy. This is just low-level bureaucratic infighting at its finest. You can see lots of examples of this in the 9/11 Report which details the many intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Some of them seem like intelligence failures mainly due to hindsight bias where what the evidence meant became obvious only if you knew what happened, but others are genuine failures. There's really not that much new here.

Re:So what is new?

[n5vb]

And if it were a conspiracy, it would still look like low-level bureaucratic infighting at its best. What better cover?

I'm sure someone in the chain recognized the credibility of the threat they were analyzing, and given how compartmentalized info is in the intelligence community, it was probably only a handful of people at most. A tacit standing agreement here and there, no phone calls or emails on the record, just an understanding and a recognition of the value of such an event in certain circles, and information just .. doesn't make it where it needs to go in time.

Bush II had just made it into office in an election a fair chunk of the country still believed he'd flat out stolen, and the legitimacy of his presidency was being debated way too openly by way too many people for people cliose to him (like Cheney) not to have been sorely tempted to arrange a major disaster very much like 9/11. I just can't see those guys not having at least some desire for something to come along to scare the hell out of the population and provide the right climate to intimidate the critics into silence.

You're right, there's no real evidence of it. There won't be, if they did it right. But look at the situation the administration was in, and look at their possible motives. A few face to face conversations off the record with a few key people most likely to have the right scope of "need to know", setting the pieces in place for the right kind of event and the right kind of calculated tactical delay at the right time, and oops! Sorry, we should have caught that, boy, that's terrible, isn't it?

If it hadn't also conveniently provided the justification for passing the USA PATRIOT Act (and what Congresscritter in his/her right mind would vote against America and patriotism, the day after a bunch of scary swarthy foreign people attacked us, right?), it wouldn't resonate this way with me. But I've come to believe it because it's the only coherent story I can make of it. Yeah, that marks me as crazy in some circles. But it's just too convenient in too many ways ..

Re:So what is new?

[Runaway1956]

"no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy"

The CIA made lots of mistakes. The single worst mistake they made, was when they allowed the White House to influence their reports, and even to edit the data to support political agendas. The CIA could well have denied some of the bullshit gushing from the White House. While they couldn't get away with using the direct language that I tend to use, there are many ways to tell the world that the White House is lying, while making it sound like you really respect the wisdom of the Pres, VP, etc.

I can forgive everything the CIA did and did not do - except for allowing Bush and Cheney to hijack the CIA's intelligence. They should have found a way to assert themselves, and to assert the real information.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to raise taxes on the job killers and the wealthy people that drive our economy off a cliff .

FTFY

Re:So what is new?

[joebagodonuts]

But there's no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy. This is just low-level bureaucratic infighting at its finest.

Doesn't that make it even more tragic?

We really screwed up. We panicked and essentially said "Bureaucracy is inefficient - lets add more!"

Re:So what is new?

[countertrolling]

When evidence is withheld from the public, that usually indicates a cover-up. But you did a very nice job of labeling any and all challenges to the official conspiracy theory as a bunch of loons. Good show!

Re:So what is new?

[sarhjinian]

Just so's you know, the problem isn't taxes, it's demand. Pumping money into the coffers of the wealthy---who are already doing quite well and hoarding almost unprecedented levels of cash---won't help. We've tried tax cuts for the wealthy (what, you didn't know that the rounds of stimulus were, depending on the country, 30-60% tax cuts?) and they aren't working: all it does is cut the revenue to the very programs that would help us get out of recession.

The "job creators" are the disenfranchised middle and lower classes. They're the ones who buy stuff, keeping stores open and others gainfully employed. They're the ones who need TARP programs for underwater mortgages, stable employment and a sense of stability. Not the rentiers who are doing quite well, thank you very much.

Re:So what is new?

[elrous0]

We need to cut taxes on the job creators

That might work if the jobs they were creating were in the U.S., and not in China and India.

Re:So what is new?

[Gilmoure]

But, but, rich people drive nice cars and wear nice suits. They must know what they're talking about, when they say their too scared to hire people right now because their taxes and business taxes are at the lowest levels since 1926. How can they possible think of expanding business if things might change? They really need the government to lock down things so that nothing ever changes again and then turn over control of everything to them. Then they'll finally feel safe enough to start hiring more people. Mostly for private armies.

Re:So what is new?

[LibRT]

The current level of demand is likely to be close to the "new normal", because the level of demand that previously existed was predicated largely upon homeowners withdrawing equity from their homes, which itself was predicated upon house prices always rising, which itself was predicated upon the federal government backstopping mortgages via Fannie and Freddie, for politically-motivated purposes (ie the federal government's odd notion that one of its jobs is to facilitate home ownership, and to particularly dictate that less qualified applicants should have their mortgage applications accepted, with defaults paid by the taxpayer, and both parties are guilty of this).

The current problem is the continuing notion that the demonstrably unsustainable level of demand must be returned to by getting housing prices to rise again via sustained low interest rates. It's dumb luck that the EU is having such problems with Greece et al that currency is fleeing to the US dollar despite the US dollar's inherent devaluation (hidden, as it is, by the influx of capital from the EU).

But taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people (that happen to be more favorable to your view of the world) by way of a massive bureaucracy is particularly inefficient. The current tax revenues exist to support the 1 in 7 people in the US who work directly for government of one level or another (which is higher than Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Portugal, and just behind Greece, which is just above 1 in 5). The fundamental and structural part of the problem is there are too many people working for government (requiring, of course, tax dollars to pay for them) and that number consistently grows faster than inflation or the economy. At some point that number simply becomes unsustainable (which Portugal and Italy are learning and which Greece already has learned). It's like Social Security: when it was established, there were 30 workers paying for each retiree; currently it's 3 workers to each retiree, and getting close to 2 workers to each retiree. It cannot be sustained long term.

The other fundamental and structural problem is that government borrowing is massively crowding out investment in the private sector (which is the sector which, you know, actually creates jobs). When about $16.6 trillion of investment capital goes to US government bonds to prop up the government, that is, of course, $16.6 trillion not going to private sector investment and in turn not creating private sector jobs.

It is going to take quite some time for the amount of demand to pick up to match the supply of labor available, and that equilibrium point isn't going to resemble the prior equilibrium point, the demand portion of which was subsidized by government policy (see above). But if you think taking even more money from one segment of the population to "bail out" another segment of the population will speed things along or be sustainable long-term, you're most certainly mistaken. I can see the populist appeal of the proposition among the economically unsophisticated, but it will not work.

As an aside, other than putting their money under a mattress, it is impossible for the wealthy (or anyone else) to "hoard" money: as soon as their money is placed in a bank, or on a stock market, or purchases bonds, or is used to purchase something, or start a business, it's back in the economy. And also, it is a decidely different thing to tax people less than it is to give them so-called "government money" (there's no such thing as "government money" - there is only that portion of your money, and your neighbors' money, which the government appropriates), although the current debate does not seem to distinguish between the two (ie people continually claim the government needs to "pay for" tax reductions). When you tax people less, you are forcibly taking less from them, you are not redistributing money. When people claim the government needs to "pay for" a tax reduction, what they are saying is government spending exceeds revenue, and the only option is to increase government revenue. That's a false conclusion - there's obviously one other option available.

Re:So what is new?

[AJH16]

"As a species we can either accept this and build a wonderful world where everybody can live a decent life without working if they want"

This is perhaps the most idiotic thing I have read all day. If everyone can live a decent life without working, then why would anyone want to work? Economics never have been and never will be a guaranteed thing that what you put in is what you get out. For every 1 person who works hard and succeeds, another 99 work hard and just make minor progress. If you extend those useful workers to now also have to carry the burden of many others, those chances of success will become 1 in 100,000. Why the hell would anyone try to work hard at such longshot odds if they could simply have an almost identical quality of life doing jack shit?

Automation has increased efficiency, but innovation has also increased the number of products available and has increased the quality of life. Automation is about using resources more efficiently. Workers producing more product means higher profit and more production and thus more resources. More resources means the ability to produce more products and more jobs. Automation and gains in efficiency should never cost jobs, but rather increase the number of high paying jobs as efficiencies grow.

To explain it more simply, if automation allows 1 person to do the work of 100, then the savings of the 99 who aren't paid to make the same product can, atleast in part, go to that 1. That one can now afford to buy far more so there is now more demand for different products from that person. The 99 who no longer are needed can then be used to make other products. The only way that the system could break is if those who were working all had everything they wanted and had no need for anything else. Efficiency can only cause a loss of jobs when demand goes away. The only other possible problem is when resources become to scarce to support the population, but in that case, you are screwed whatever way you go and your best hope is to reward those who make most effective use of resources. (Which will be those who are most efficient.)

So

[SlippyToad]

Deliberately screwing something up is still called a "mistake" when it leads to thousands of easily-prevented deaths?

I guess if I intentionally sabotage a project I'm working on I can claim a mistake was made too. I am just as sure that I will get fired regardless.

If just ONE person gets fired or becomes unemployable due to this it would be a sign that some kind of credibility still exists in our federal law enforcement/security agencies. But, I doubt it's ever going to happen.

Re:So

[billcopc]

The problem is finding the source of that mistake. Either you accept the possibility that a series of individually inane omissions added up to a giant clusterfuck, or you choose to believe the theory that a handful of people acted strategically to trigger the "right mistakes", which sent the remaining players along a predictable path toward the desired outcome. Like a big meat-powered Rube Goldberg machine of doom...

Given the level of stupidity inherent in any large enough organisation, I'm not quite ready to dismiss theory #2.

"well, back in my day we didn't eat babies..."

[Thud457]

Get with the times grandpa! Accountability is for little people!

Re:"well, back in my day we didn't eat babies..."

[hedwards]

Which is the problem. Rather than focusing on increasing the quality of the information that they're processing, they've focused on increasing the volume hoping that something will rise to the surface. The problem is that even as they get more and more materials the number of people available to analyse it hasn't increased by a similar amount. Leading to the unfortunate situation where there's a lot of intelligence information out there that isn't analysed, and a lot of people losing privacy needlessly.

Accountability for torture and various violations of the law don't seem to ever materialise at the levels necessary to prevent the abuses of power.

credibility?

[rjejr]

I think you mean culpability. Nobody gets fired anymore. Colin Powell's huge WMD speech before the UN is still my favorite example. Oh sure, Clinton got impeached for getting a bj from a fat chick, but "Brownie" destroying New Orleans? Heckuva job there. Mission Accomplished in Iraq. On the bright side, cover-ups will soon be a thing of the past, all the evils of the world exposed and the perpetrators will simply say - "there ya go, do something about it", but nobody can, or will.

Re:credibility?

[corbettw]

Clinton was impeached, he just wasn't convicted. Same with Andrew Johnson.

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

Clinton got impeached for getting a bj from a fat chick,

That's not true. Clinton was impeached for two things, neither of which was the physical encounter with Monica Lewinsky. The first thing he was impeached for was Perjury before a Grand Jury. The act that spawned this article of impeachment was when he claimed under oath in Judge Susan Webber Wright's grand jury that he had never had intimate relations with any person who was subordinate to him. The second thing he was impeached for was Obstruction of Justice. That acts that spawned this article of impeachment was when he encouraged Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, when he encouraged her to lie under oath, when he plotted with his secretary to hide a box of gifts he had given to Lewinsky, when he attempted to get Lewinsky a job so that she would not provide truthful testimony, when he lied to White House staff, and when he allowed his attorney to make false statements on his behalf.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, remember when lying about a bj was this nation's biggest problem? How do we get back to those times?

Re:credibility?

[cwgmpls]

How stupid do you think we are? Everybody knows exactly what happened to Clinton. So edit the statement to read "Clinton got impeached for lying about getting a bj from a fat chick" and it still carries the same meaning. Clinton was impeached for an act that was of no consequence to the nation. Yet we have leaders destroy cities and nations through lies and incompetence and yet they face no consequences.

Re:credibility?

[Microlith]

Yup, and they didn't convict because they're all damned hypocrites, and they had to hound the man and burn millions of dollars only to try and get him for something that occurred during the investigation and not something revealed as a result of the investigation.

tl;dr: the Republican witch hunt was worthless, and so was the impeachment.

Re:credibility?

[Nimey]

Wrong. He was impeached because he made the Republicans look bad during the government shutdowns, so they found an excuse to hurt him back.

It was never about whether Clinton broke the law or not, it was simply low politics.

All the President's Men

[schlesinm]

That manager was named Richard Earl Blee and he is now the subject of a documentary by Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, of secrecykills.org, who confirmed his identity using techniques right out of the 70s film All the President's Men.

They had an FBI Associate Director feed them information?

Wrong

[sycodon]

This was not an example of turf wars.

This was a deliberate policy established during the Clinton Administration by Jamie Gorelick to wall off information between the CIA/other foreign intelligence sources and the FBI/Local law enforcement.

Re:Wrong

[DriedClexler]

Right, and isn't this what most civil liberties advocates (who I count myself among) want? That is, the more that government agencies can cooperate with each other, the easier it is to arrest any one person.

I'm not trying to blame anyone, just predict that future news will cycle between:

"OMG! They missed the 9/11 attack because of stupid rules about info-sharing between agencies?"

and

"OMG! A totalitarian bill going through the Senate is going to let government agencies share their files on us, giving them unlimited power to raid your privacy."

Folks, there are tradeoffs.

Re:Wrong

[TheSync]

"OMG! A totalitarian bill going through the Senate...Folks, there are tradeoffs."

Totalitarian governments kill millions of people (USSR, China, Germany, etc.)

Terrorists so far only seem to be able to kill a few thousand at a pop...

Put me down for prefers missing the occasional terrorist over totalitarian government.

Now if the government was more open and actually publicized the fact that terrorists were planning on hijacking planes as missiles (which we knew years before), it is possible 9/11 may have only lead to a few hundred deaths, if that. Instead, we got security through obscurity...

The problem is naming them.

[khasim]

As far as I can tell, this is just one more example of how turf wars between the different agencies caused severe information gaps before 9/11.

The difference is that the people RESPONSIBLE for those turf wars are now being IDENTIFIED by NAME.

Look at how many "mistakes" were made on critical issues ... without anyone being identified or fired.