Friday, January 01, 2010

Dennis Blair's Letter to CIA

As long as people are happy to kill themselves for an ideology, there's never going to be a way to be secure enough to stop terrorists from doing their thing. Even someone from your neighborhood could emerge from their home and blow up themselves at the local whatever. Those are the seeds that the terrorists are sowing. Eventually, they want the U.S. to face regular suicide bombings like they do in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Somehow we have to find a way to fight ideology. But how? I don't think anyone has struck on a solution yet because I don't think anyone fully understands the problem yet. The problem doesn't appear to be rooted in poverty. The solution, for sure, can't be solely a military one, or a defensive one, or a body scanner.
Dennis Blair, National Intelligence Director:
The President was direct in his assessment that intelligence failures were a contributing factor in the escalation of this threat. This is a tough message for us to receive. But we have received it, and now we must move forward and respond as a team.

In coming days we will review what information was available to whom, determine what mistakes were made in assessing or sharing that information, commend those who did their jobs well, and hold accountable those who did not. I have no doubt in our ability to close the gaps that these attacks exposed.
Read all of it here