The CIA was created during the Eisenhower Administration by the brother of the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.  The US had intelligence gathering experience with the OSS during WWII, but was new at peace time intelligence gathering.  The CIA relied heavily on the British and Israeli intelligence agencies.  The three agencies exchanged intelligence and the British and Israelis also tutored the CIA on intelligence gathering methods.  Intelligence gathering is sometimes a dirty business but that is the nature of the mission.  It is something we know is necessary but we don’t like to think about.  Rubbish collectors are necessary but we don’t like to think about garbage.

An example was the destabilization of the Guatemalan Government and orchestrating the coup to oust Arbans from office.  Arbans was freely elected to office but his plans for Guatemala ran contrary to American interests.  The Democrats claim the CIA caused the ouster of Arbans to protect American business interests in Guatemala, namely the United Fruit Co. of Boston.  The CIA contends Arbans was a communist and a treat to the other countries in Central America.  As any rate, all this “dirty business” was exposed by Church during his Senate hearings on the CIA.  The end result was the Freedom of Information Act applied to the CIA.  When this happened, the British and Israelis stopped sharing sensitive intelligence with the CIA for fear of having their agents and operations exposed by the Freedom of Information Act.  Church was proud of his accomplishment because he felt he caused the CIA to be more responsive to the people much like the local police.  Eventually, the CIA evolved into a bloated bureaucracy where most of the employees were more concerned about receiving a government pension upon retirement than they were about gathering intelligence.

In regards to 911:  Prior to the Church hearings the CIA would have agents placed in strategic areas around the world.  Needless to say, there would have been agents all over the Middle East.  The agents would have an almost unlimited amount of cash to buy information.  There were enough people involved in the planning of 911 that at least one person would have exchanged the information on the plot for a million dollars or more in cash.  I also believe the British and/or the Israelis knew about 911, maybe on a limited basis, before it happened but could not compromise their agents.  It was only a matter of hours before the British had the terrorists who bombed their subway in custody, an example of their effective intelligence.  An attack on the scale of 911 would never happen to either Great Britton or Israel because they would know about it beforehand and stop it. Their action to avoid a catastrophic terrorist attack might be nothing more than the untimely deaths of a few key people, an event or events that might not even reach the news.

Subsequent to 911, a CIA agent could have appeared at the American Embassy in Pakistan with a satchel full of cash and within a very short period of time find out exactly where Osama Bin Laden was hiding.  Since the CIA is so hamstrung, the agency is unable to do the job there were intended to do and we have to end up sending in an army rather than hiring an assassin.  

The bottom line: The liberals/Democrats are indirectly responsible for 911; the military invasion of Iraq and the lost of thousands of American military lives and the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians.  

"The bottom line: The liberals/Democrats are indirectly responsible for 911; the military invasion of Iraq and the lost of thousands of American military lives and the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians."


I dispute that entirely..The 911 operation was the first of its kind and even if we had CIA agents imbedded all over the Mid East the operation was so small and secret that the odds of catching in advance were lottery like.

While I would love to cast as much blame as possible in that direction, I am afraid that in this case I have to question the premise.

I think it is true that the intelligence was hampered by the cuts you're discussing, but it is still speculative to assume that without those cuts the plot would have been discovered.

Even if general hints were uncovered, linking rumors of that type of operation to specific places and dates may have been impossible.  Even if the general plan was "known" before, it would be very hard to find the actual operatives and exact targets.

The CIA, even when funded at the max, has often misread signs.  This isn't to cast aspersions, since a lot of intelligence gathering is hit and miss and all agencies miss a lot.

While cutting intelligence didn't help, I don't think that connection is fair.  

On the other hand, the general failure to view terrorism as a different type of war, with organized and well-funded organizations of thousands of members bent on mayhem and destruction of civilian targets, may have been a greater problem.

The History of the CIA; by Tim Weiner.

read it. Very interesting. Close to what I was trying to say.

9/11 was an inevitability. That isn't partisan, that is reality. Whether it was Clinton's watch, Bush's watch, or whoever is elected after Bush.....9/11, or a 5/12, or a 3/16 was going to happen someday.

For one thing, our enemies are determined, and intelligence gathering alone was absolutely not going to stop them. Delay perhaps, but never stop them. It has only been in the past few years, when we have taken the fight directly to them that the real hope of never again being attacked as we were on 9/11 was possible. Even now, despite our aggressive fight against terrorism, there are no 100% guarantees that we won't be attacked again like 9/11. We are just doing a great job at making the terrorist's job more difficult.

Another reason that 9/11 was inevitable is because we the American people - Republicans, Democrates, libertarians, independents, and the politically silent - were complacent and well, somewhat arrogant in our assumption that something like 9/11 would never happen. Do you think we would have tolerated the extreme inconvenience of the security we now endure when flying simply because someone told us we needed to? Certainly not. We certainly wouldn't have tolerated an all out war for no reason either. Do you think we would have maintained the vigilance we now maintain in our own cities and on our subways, trains, and planes without a motivator like 9/11 to keep us alert? No.

9/11 MIGHT...emphasis on MIGHT....have been prevented if we had better intelligence. It might have been prevented if we had practiced the level of security in our airports then that we do now. If we had successfully prevented 9/11 though, we would be comemmorating some other date, some other day when our intelligence fell short, our vigilance was not sufficient, and when our enemies found some tiny loophole in our security to exploit for their purposes. Furhtermore, rest assured that someday we WILL commemorate and mourn another day of horrific violence if we ever allow ourselves to be lulled us back to complacency.

That isn't partisn, that is just reality. However, I firmly believe that the Republican Party understands these simple truths with a depth and certainty that Democrats do not. Which is, more than any other reason, why I vote Republican.

Former ABC Foreign Correspondent John Miller worked for the CIA before he left the agency and went to work for ABC.  He is an expert in terrorism with special expertise in Middle East terrorist groups.  He is the only American journalist who ever conducted a face to face interview with Osama Bin Laden.

Miller told former NYPD Commissioner, William Bratton that New York was highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks because the CIA had become so ineffective that he could not depend on the agency for accurate, timely intelligence. Miller offered to help the NYPD set up a foreign intelligence unit.  Bratton felt it was a good idea but the plan went to the back burner.  

Bratton eventually was hired as Chief of Police in Los Angeles.  He was the LAPD Chief on 911. Bratton remembered Miller’s warning and asked him to head up the LAPD’s Homeland Security.  Part of the Department of Homeland Security’s plan was for each city to have their own version of homeland security.  In addition to establishing LAPD’s Office of Homeland Security, Miller also suggested the LAPD establish a foreign intelligence unit.  Bratton approved the plan and Miller began training selected police officer in foreign espionage.  The agents he trained were deployed in the Middle East.  At the request of Raymond Kelly, NYPD Commissioner, Miller went back to New York and established a foreign intelligence operation for the NYPD and deployed agents in the Middle East.  So far the NYPD intelligent officers in the Middle East have intercepted two major attacks on New York while they were in the planning stages.  The information most likely was passed on to the NYPD officers by the Israelis.  That vital information wasn’t even known to the CIA.  

Miller is currently a terrorism consultant with the FBI.  He trains selected FBI agents in intelligent and counter intelligent operations.  Miller said the difference between the effectiveness of the CIA before Sen. Church destroyed the agency and the CIA subsequent to Church is like day and night.  Miller went on the say that occasionally the CIA was faced with a situation wherein an individual or individuals had to be neutralized in the interest of national security.  To his knowledge, he was not aware of a single incident where a CIA agent killed someone.  The CIA contracted non agency individuals to kill when it was absolutely necessary.  Senator Church, along with the other liberals at the hearings were horrified that an individual could be punished or even executed with out due process.  These morons didn’t understand the difference between punishment and taking steps to keep someone from killing large numbers of innocent civilians before it happened.

The catastrophic results of the hearings had nothing to do with the funding of the agency.  The problem was opening up the agency so it would be “transparent” to show the world we were open and honest in what we do.  

Miller and other intelligence experts believe that 911 could have been avoided if we had the intelligence gathering capabilities we had prior to the Church hearings.

Most people simply don’t understand how espionage or intelligence gathering works.  Their misconception is due in large part by watching moves like 007.  Anytime two or more people conspire to commit an act, the chances are one of the individuals will roll over on the operation.  This is done for the large amount of cash that is paid directly to the informant.  If there is little or no chance the informant will be revealed, the risk justifies the reward.  However, in an open and transparent agency no one wants to take the risk of being exposed for any amount of money.  Miller said there were more than an ample amount of insiders who knew about the planning of 911 to have sold that information to the CIA.  The whole thing could have been nipped in the bud before it got off the ground.  Some participants would have been brought to justice and some would have been neutralized.  To think that 911 could not have been discovered and sabotaged is delusional.

Miller said the CIA is under constant attack by left leaning members of Congress who want to dismantle the agency because they fear the CIA might gather intelligence on American citizens and use that information for political purposes.  

He didn’t mention which U.S police departments have agents in the Middle East other than NYPD and LAPD.  He said the information gathered by the two police agencies is far more reliable than the information gathered by the CIA.  To his knowledge, the police agencies exchange information with the British and the Israelis but have little or no communication with the CIA.  Any useful information that they obtain is shared with the Department of Homeland Security.  

This is a prime example of incredibly stupid and naïve people like Frank Church, Nancy Pelosi, etc. seriously harming our country because they have no idea what they are doing
Is it partisan?  You bet it is.

It may never have happened if we had a President with a brain in the White House!

You mean like Clinton who was too busy on the golf course to take Bin Ladin out? Read Buzz Patterson's book and you will about brains in the White House.

911 did not happen to Clinton!  I'm talking about the first moron who was pretending to read "My Pet Goat" when it happened!
Its a good book for him, lots of pictures!

yes, and limited text, all of it geared to a 1st-grade reading level