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Fighting Terror: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
In his latest column, Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein revisits the Silvestre Reyes Shia-or-Sunni fiasco (which his previous column had sparked).
The incoming House intelligence committee chairman isn't the only person who doesn't know his ABCs, Stein reports:
Former Army intelligence Col. Rich Reynolds, who spent over two decades in the Middle East, told me he was startled recently to hear about several young CIA intelligence analysts at the CIA headquarters who were completely unfamiliar with Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon.The analysts’ current area of responsibility? Lebanon.
Likewise, a young intelligence analyst specializing in terrorist finances at the Department of Homeland Security was baffled a few weeks back by a question about hawalas, the ubiquitous Arab shops that work like an informal Western Union network to transfer money around the Middle East.
Experts think hawalas are one of al Qaeda’s prime channels for moving cash.
“What’s a hawala?” she asked.
Another young CIA analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a former White House National Security Council official who continues to work on intelligence matters, seemed totally surprised to learn that the terrorist group most responsible for killing Americans before 9/11 was not al Qaeda or a Palestinian faction but Hezbollah. The Iran-backed Shiite“Party of God” killed more than 300 Americans in suicide bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and 1990s.
I guess we'll find out if it's true what they say -- what you don't know can't hurt you.
Comments (13)
Gregory X wrote on December 18, 2006 12:19 PM:As the Iraqi insurgency began I was amazed by the seemingly complete lack of preparation by the US military for dealing with IEDs and suicide car bombers. It was these very weapons that inflicted the most Israeli casualties in Lebanon and yet the Rumsfeldian response at the Pentagon was surprise as these devices took their bloody toll on the battlefield in Iraq. It was as though the planners had skipped their military history for a steady diet of candy and flowers.
MsAnnaNOLA wrote on December 18, 2006 12:24 PM:Pitiful and rediculous. Every damn one on the government needs to go back to school.
Sara wrote on December 18, 2006 3:43 PM:Director of the FBI Robert Muller exhibited something of the same problem recently when asked about al-Qaeda supported attacks prior to 9-11. In particular he was asked about the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman for conspiracy to bomb NYC landmarks during the 1990's. He said he was unfamiliar with threats prior to becoming FBI Director.
Some Irony here -- The FBI recently hired as its chief PR person John Miller, formerly of ABC news. Miller covered all the NYC terrorism cases tried in Federal Court in NYC during the 90's for ABC, and he also interviewed bin Laden for an hour long Nightline production with Koppel. After 9-11 he quickly got into print with "The Cell" (December 2001) the first book available to pull together much of what was known as a result of the sworn testimony and evidence in those 1990 trials. Muller ought to ask Miller if he could borrow his book, and maybe take the time to review his ABC reporting clips. Afterall, Miller is Muller's spokesperson.
pluky wrote on December 19, 2006 1:41 PM:Do either the CIA or the FBI have anything like the State Department's Foreign Service Examination for prospective hires? If not, why?
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