Geoff Metcalf -- Smoke And Fire

SMOKE AND FIRE

By Geoff Metcalf

December 22, 2003

NewsWithViews.com

"Who is guarding the guardians themselves? --Juvenal

P.J. O'Rourke once observed, "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

Government abuse of power under the color of authority is a terrible thing. However, systemic institutional incompetence and malfeasance (especially when fueled by careerism, ego, and territorial imperatives can, and has been, equally damaging.

Rather than sandbagging, obfuscating, and butt covering, assorted government agencies would be well served to acknowledge the elephant in the living room. Someone with a commitment to 'Duty, Honor, Country'�and the stones need to acknowledge:

Mistakes were made prior to and subsequent 9/11. We will do everything possible to mitigate against repeating those mistakes. Admit past errors and focus on stopping the bad guys from mucking up our lives. If careerists would devote half the energy to their jobs they devote to keeping them we would be even further along in our war against terrorism.

Ever since 9/11 we have been told: eventually, inevitably, somewhere, somehow�we don't know when, where or how, but international terrorists WILL again strike on U.S. soil. It has been a chronic refrain articulated by anyone and everyone in government, to varying degrees, contingent on the phases of the moon and the color of the alert status.

Vice President Cheney recently warned that "the major threat" facing the nation is the possibility (if not probability) that terrorists could detonate a biological or nuclear weapon in a U.S. city. [link]
Authorities are evaluating a surge of information related to possible terrorist threats to a number of cities in the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
The New York City threat allegedly involves a female suicide bomber. [link]
An audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden's deputy in al-Qaida, aired on Arab television, warned the terror group would target Americans "in their homeland" and would drive U.S. forces from bases in the region.
Threat information is coming from intelligence intercepts, interrogation of recent detainees and other unidentified ethereal methods.

Although the origins of the epic 9/11 attack remain beyond most Americans, there were significant warnings way less subtle than some Scribean foreshadow�and assorted initialed government agencies had the Intel�but apparently not the intelligence to act.

The FBI, for a variety of reasons, (going back to 1989) missed dozens of opportunities to prevent the attacks of September 11.

Peter Lance www.peterlance.com is a well-credentialed investigative journalist with 5 Emmys and oodles of experience. In the wake of interviews with scores of central figures, and hundreds of pages of declassified documents, Lance uncovered startling evidence of FBI negligence that even a joint congressional committee either missed or ignored. His revelations can be read in '1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI/The Untold Story'.

Some of the information is known to google-addicted news junkies�much is not.

Osama bin Laden was running an active al Qaeda terror cell in New York City since the early 1990s. He used blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and Ramzi Yousef, master bomb maker.
The FBI could have and should have captured Yousef before he built the first World Trade Center bomb in 1993.
In 1995, they learned that he had already set the 9/11 suicide-hijacking plot in motion from Manila - AND it was known he was planning "to return to the U.S. to attack the World Trade Center a second time." Despite forewarning the FBI failed to stop him.
FBI agent Nancy Floyd was able to get a key informant inside the cell of Sheikh Rahman. However her supervisor aborted the asset by incompetence and arrogance�but he wasn't the Lone incompetent Ranger.
When Fire Marshall Ronnie Bucca notified the FBI, in 1999, that an associate of Sheikh Rahman had removed the plans for the World Trade Center from FDNY headquarters in 1992�he was ignored.

Yousef, apparently succeeded in defeating the entire American security system in what Lance calls "the greatest failure of intelligence since the Trojan Horse."

Interagency bureaucratic posturing, positioning and petty b.s. contributed significantly to an epic institutional mission failure that has largely been obfuscated by classic governmental C.Y.A.

Many assume the territorial battles between our various initialed intelligence organizations have been mitigated by the creation of the Homeland Security Department. However, there are indications such an assumption presumes facts not necessarily in evidence.

James Fennimore Cooper once observed, "It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil. It behooves the well-intentioned, therefore, vigorously to watch the tendency of even their most highly prized institutions, since that which was established in the interests of the right, may so easily become the agent of the wrong."

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"Geoff Metcalf is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host for TALK AMERICA and a veteran media performer. He has had an eclectic professional background covering a wide spectrum of radio, television, magazine, and newspapers. A former Green Beret and retired Army officer he is in great demand as a speaker. Visit Geoff's Web Site: www.geoffmetcalf.com. While you're at it - pick up a copy of Geoff's latest book! E-mail: geoff@geoffmetcalf.com

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"Many assume the territorial battles between our various initialed intelligence organizations have been mitigated by the creation of the Homeland Security Department."