Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11

If you need a Washington journalist with access to CIA and intelligence officials and documents, you need Bill Gertz. He has the access and the knowledge, and the trust of the intelligence community. The book reads a lot like a Tom Clancy novel, transporting the reader instantly to the rocky hills of Afghanistan, and to the dusty cities of the Middle East, and then back to the paper covered desks of CIA intelligence analysts, and so forth. It names names, and tells stories of all intelligence agencies and intelligence gathering communities. Not just the CIA and the FBI, but the top secret NSA and other bureaus. It talks about the long term degradation of the CIA in particular, intensified by the political machinations of the Clinton administration.You find out that thanks to Clinton, the last and best of CIA intelligence agents (that's spies) in Iraq, Robert Baer, was yanked back to the US and his cover shattered because it was brought to Clinton's attention that the NSA intercepted a memo within Iran saying they suspected that America was trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein, and they would rather stop Baer in his tracks than trust the CIA. Of course, Baer was simply staying alive and abreast of events in Iraq, doing a job no one else can do right now, nor will anyone be able to do it.That is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg.Perhaps we would be able to avoid war in Iraq if our espionage forces were supported these past 12 years. But we have zero "HUMINT" in Iraq and many other places we need it. When you are done with this book, you'll be sad to know that George W. Bush, despite his sincere efforts in the war on terror, has not fired Clinton appointee George Tenet, figurehead of the CIA and one of its chief problems, and that no one in the CIA has been held accountable for the gross negligence of September 11th, nevermind Coleen Rowley's attempts to bring the issue to light to the tonedeaf liberal media. However, perhaps reform can be accomplished by Tom Ridge, the new Homeland Security Cabinet officer. Perhaps then, as vigilance has been returned to those affected by 9/11, vigilance and an effective organization will be returned to America's FBI, CIA, INS, and NSA.

The best-selling author of "Betrayal," which should have won a Pulitzer Prize, and "The China Threat" has done it again with his latest book about how America's intelligence failures led to September 11. Gertz, who has unprecedented access to our intelligence system, shows convincingly and conclusively with previously unpublished classified documents how there is plenty of blame to go around. He says it best when he states, "The established bureaucracies that make up the U.S. intelligence community have lost sight of their purpose and function. Instead of working to support U.S. defense and national security objectives, they have become wedded to the idea that the institution--not its intended function--is what matters. This book . . . examine[s] the events of September 11, what was known and what was not known. It is a story of an intelligence bureaucracy that is broken and urgently in need of repair."

This is a very objective, well-balanced, researched book, that can help us not repeat the pre-9/11 intelligence failures in the future. Why did our most prominent leaders and others, insultingly question the author's patriotism for coming out with this book? Answer: embarrassment and an attempt to deflect the publics' attention away from these failures. As for the intelligence community, bureaucrats are constantly trying to take credit for successes and pass blame to others for failures. Since every agency, and department within every agency, has failed to some degree in this matter, they are all running for cover. Egos and careers come first. What is the most common "Washington way" to do it? Attack the messenger.Not necessarily pointing the figure, but noting that human nature, organizational behavior, agency turf-disputes, overlapping roles, and a lack of communication within and between governmental agencies, were all factors that led to this surprise that shouldn't have been. These factors still exist today. The politically correct CIA director George Tenet, is still on the job. He should have been canned on September 12.This is a very well researched exploration into the many events that happened before, during, and after this tragic event. It's about the facts. It can only help.

Bill Gertz shows again why even his adversaries rate him as America's premier intelligence reporter today. Gertz's expose of the intelligence failures that led up to 9-11 is going to shock the nation and cause some much needed soul searching in our intelligence community. The book is written in terse, fact-based prose that often reads like a suspense thriller. Yet it's based on Gertz's solid news reporting experience on the spy and defense beat with the Washington Times, earning him a reputation as the man with the best top-secret leaker's rolodex in Washington.Gertz is also a patriot. He takes names, kicks ..., and points the finger squarely at our intelligence agencies' politically correct, risk-averse bureaucatic culture for failing to provide the "human intelligence" necessary to prevent terror attacks. This is a book that delivers. If Gertz's advice is taken, some heads are going to roll, notably that of Clinton holdover George Tenet at CIA. America and the world will probably be a safer place as a result, and our spy networks will get a long overdue new set of teeth.

Does anyone really doubt that there wasn't a huge intelligence failure that led up to 9/11? All of these terrorist killers just materialized out of thin air? Political correctness, bureaucratic infighting and just miscellaneous stupidity couldn't have come into play as well? Our government was preoccupied with Clinton and Monica, the false War on Drugs, anything, anything, anything except those that bombed our embassies in Africa, blew up the USS Cole, killed our soldiers in the Saudi Arabian Khobar towers, etc. Lots of great wishful thinking (maybe the Taliban will hand Bin Laden over) too... It's a crying shame and let me tell you this dear readers, author/journalist Bill Gertz is a major patriotic American to tell the truth to us like this. You know, the people that failed us are still running the system! And as Coleen Rowley so bravely said, and I paraphrase, should we put the counterterrorism unit chief and his supervisor (the fools Maltbie and Frasca that messed up the Moussaoui matter) in charge now? Tenet stills runs the CIA. This is American accountability? What have we really learned since 9/11? Thank God for this book, I hope it causes a real storm and makes people upset, upset enough to demand change!