Another "Failure to connect the dots."

[HalfLotus]

White House summary of the review of "underwear bomber":

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Review_Summary.pdf

My only comment would be that the intelligence community makes a very good whipping boy/scape goat; the chances of a whistle-blower emerging from the spook community is generally extremely low.

[SlowwHand]

Well, he at least acknowledged that the "buck stops with me". Nice that he recognizes the fact.

[Elok]

Whoops

[Darius871]

White House summary of the review of "underwear bomber":

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Review_Summary.pdf

My only comment would be that the intelligence community makes a very good whipping boy/scape goat; the chances of a whistle-blower emerging from the spook community is generally extremely low.

hahaha you trust Faux News

[Elok]

Well, that's more or less what I said, but I think it's a WH-issued summary merely hosted by Fox, in this case. I think.

[HalfLotus]

Yes the link is to the WH summary alone, has nothing to do with Fox news journalism - they're just web hosting the .pdf.

Anyway the intel procedures and facts can never be verified independently, the intel community has zero transparency. So we're just going on the word of the feds.

However some of the important facts of this case have been vehemently disputed by eyewitnesses, a couple by the name of Haskell:

"Our story has been the same since Day One because we are telling the truth. This is the FBI's fourth story."

edit: Haskell family blog with full report by them and some FBI correspondance: Lori's Liberal Realm

[HalfLotus]

The WH summary makes no mention of a failure of airport security yet Obama orders $1B spent on airport body scanners.



Image from here.

[BeBMan]

Isn't that pic against the rules here?

[Darius871]

Well, that's more or less what I said, but I think it's a WH-issued summary merely hosted by Fox, in this case. I think.

Suuuuuuure it is. That's just what "they" want you to think!

[HalfLotus]

CIA propagandist assigned to internal investigation.

The cover-ups continue
Obama's pick to investigate Northwest bomb attempt assures failure won't be punished
By Melvin A. Goodman

January 13, 2010


The Obama administration announced Friday the appointment of John E. McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, to head the internal investigation of the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight headed for Detroit. With this appointment, President Obama has assured that the culture of intelligence cover-up will continue. Mr. McLaughlin has participated in the cover-up of many of the CIA's most egregious failures and misdeeds during the last decade. When he left the CIA, he served as the agency's chief apologist.

Most of official Washington views Mr. McLaughlin as the mild-mannered, professorial CIA bureaucrat whom former CIA director George Tenet called the "smartest man he had ever met." Few people understand, however, that Mr. McLaughlin played the central role in providing the Bush administration with false intelligence to justify the use of force against Iraq in 2003. Washington insiders remember that it was CIA director Tenet who told President George W. Bush, "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk," in response to the demand for stronger intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Few people remember that it was Mr. McLaughlin who actually delivered the "slam-dunk" briefing to the president in January 2003.

Mr. McLaughlin was behind much of the politicized intelligence before the war. He perverted the intelligence process, ignored high-level briefings on the weakness of the WMD evidence and tried to silence David Kay, the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, when the weapons inspectors found no sign of WMD in Iraq.

Mr. McLaughlin was also behind the CIA's preparation of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. in February 2003 that used phony intelligence to convince an international audience of the need for war. According to Larry Wilkerson, Mr. Powell's chief of staff, Mr. Tenet and Mr. McLaughlin lied to the secretary of state about the sourcing of serious allegations dealing with Saddam Hussein and WMD. The most serious allegation came from an Iraqi con man known as "Curveball," who maintained that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories, a key charge in the justification for war. German intelligence officials who debriefed Curveball warned the CIA that he was unstable and there was no validation for his claims. Tyler Drumheller, the chief of the CIA's European Division, knew that Curveball was a liar, and he urged Mr. McLaughlin to drop all references to the mobile labs from Mr. Powell's speech. Mr. McLaughlin ignored him too.

Five weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Powell and Mr. McLaughlin shared a table at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where Mr. McLaughlin, an amateur magician, performed a few magic tricks with coins and bills. Everyone at the table laughed except for Mr. Powell. According to Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote an authoritative book on Curveball, Mr. Powell requested another trick: "Let's see you find the WMD in Iraq." Mr. McLaughlin looked surprised, and his broad grin faded. "We will," he replied. "They're there, and we'll find them."

...

More at the link.

[Dinner]

The WH summary makes no mention of a failure of airport security yet Obama orders $1B spent on airport body scanners.



Image from here.

I believe I would hit that.

[HalfLotus]

Workin' at the good ol' TSA will be a small step down from porn director.