A Question Of Priorities....
As a quick follow-up to my recent post about Bush's failure to make the capture of the largest mass-murderer in U.S. history a priority, take a look at this page on the FBI's website. Notice anything missing?
How about this page?
It has been almost four years since 9/11, and capturing those responsible is such a priority that not one of the 30,000 people who work at the FBI---and whose salaries we pay---has gotten around to updating the "Most Wanted" profiles of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri to include any mention of 9/11. And both profiles say the two are "currently thought to be in Afghanistan." Maybe that's why we haven't found them; we're looking in the wrong country.
Or maybe we're wasting time looking for people we've already killed. On this page of current "Most Wanted Terrorists" at the FBI's website, Muhammad Atef is listed with a large reward offered. Atef was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Committees spend years talking about how to improve our intelligence agencies, we spend tens of billions trying to do so, and we even establish massive new bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security---but we can't have one person take five minutes to update a website. That says it all, doesn't it?
Combined with outrages like this one courtesy of a recently-departed senior CIA official, what we're learning about the source named "Curveball" and so many other mistakes, miscalculations and screw-ups in the intelligence community, is anyone really surprised?
5/8/05 UPDATE: The FBI has finally removed the long-dead Atef from its page of "Most Wanted Terrorists" but other inaccuracies still exist, as I discuss here.
How about this page?
It has been almost four years since 9/11, and capturing those responsible is such a priority that not one of the 30,000 people who work at the FBI---and whose salaries we pay---has gotten around to updating the "Most Wanted" profiles of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri to include any mention of 9/11. And both profiles say the two are "currently thought to be in Afghanistan." Maybe that's why we haven't found them; we're looking in the wrong country.
Or maybe we're wasting time looking for people we've already killed. On this page of current "Most Wanted Terrorists" at the FBI's website, Muhammad Atef is listed with a large reward offered. Atef was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Committees spend years talking about how to improve our intelligence agencies, we spend tens of billions trying to do so, and we even establish massive new bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security---but we can't have one person take five minutes to update a website. That says it all, doesn't it?
Combined with outrages like this one courtesy of a recently-departed senior CIA official, what we're learning about the source named "Curveball" and so many other mistakes, miscalculations and screw-ups in the intelligence community, is anyone really surprised?
5/8/05 UPDATE: The FBI has finally removed the long-dead Atef from its page of "Most Wanted Terrorists" but other inaccuracies still exist, as I discuss here.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Saturday, April 09, 2005
81 Comments:
wow!
Great find. Amazing.
The one about Atef still being listed with a reward boggles my mind. This is government incompetence at its worst.
Sheesh. I wonder what ELSE is wrong on their website?
Another very good read here, thanks.
30,000 people indeed. And not a single one to tend to this in almost FOUR YEARS?
I find this amazing. I can't believe no one else has noticed this before now.
Here's a telling quote from the Wasington Post:
He [Richard Perle} disavowed any responsibility for his confident prewar assertions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, heaping the blame instead on "appalling incompetence" at the CIA. "There is reason to believe that we were sucked into an ill-conceived initial attack aimed at Saddam himself by double agents planted by the regime."
Anytime someone starts blaming double agents for his woes, you know the series has jumped the shark.
I read a review of the book, "Broken : The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI". When we need these agencies to be at their best, they are at their worse, and on top of that everything is politicized to a toxic level these days. I don't mind different ideas, I just hate the lies and this rabid Tom Delay kick them when they are down and don't forget to use the bat way of treating people. My god, we are all human beings. Just think in your business, how in the world can you get people to work together in a productive manner.
I can't keep track anymore of all the promises Bush makes and breaks. He's going to get to the bottom of things... but actions certainly speak louder than words.
This was a terrific post.
It's been FOUR YEARS since 9-11 and the FBI still hasn't updated bin Ladin's rap sheet! Makes you feel real secure with Bush's so-called Homeland Security. Our tax money at work.
What I want to know is why no one is holding the Bush Administration responsible for the failures of the intelligence community.
I mean, where exactly does the buck stop?
CR, what's your take on the inheritance tax repeal being pushed by the Bush administration?
Your Honor, don't blame us -- it was the one-armed man! Him and Hillary Clinton got away in a 1970s Ford Gran Torino! Just like the one on Starsky & Hutch!
The FBI has plenty of code crackers... you would think one would take the time to 'crack' HTML or PHP...
Oh for Chrissakes. Send this into The Daily Show, CR. This needs bigger play.
Great catch, BTW. Another great read. I like this site very much.
Did you see Thomas Friedman's column in the NYT today? He thinks there have been no more terrorists attacks in this country because we have been fighting the war in Iraq!
I guess he thinks bin Laden has been too busy fighting with the insurgency to try anything in this country.
Fool.
You know I love to partake in a bout of good-natured Bush is incompotent just as much as the next person. Good God we have enough examples of it ... that being said this is not one of them. Furthurmore this sort of snark is entirely counterproductive and simply reinforces the contention that snark is more important than actually fact (again I'm perfectly happy to "lie-the-truth" for the sake of really good snark, but this ain't one of them).
From the page (http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/fugitives.htm) that leads you to the FBI profiles of
"The alleged terrorists on this list have been indicted by sitting Federal Grand Juries in various jurisdictions in the United States for the crimes reflected on their wanted posters. Evidence was gathered and presented to the Grand Juries, which led to their being charged. The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."
Seems pretty much to answer all of the snark.
What i find interesting is the last link, wherein the CIA guys makes the argument that Bin Laden is better contained than dead. Wasn't this what we Liberal pansies were saying about Saddam?
What I've always found interesting and contradictory, however, is that when it comes to doing things like destabilizing foreign governments rich people in our country don't like or spying on our own citizens that are dissidents, something that our intelligence services were not ostesibly set up to do, our intelligence community seem to have no problem whatsoever being effective and efficient.
What's that all about?
Another of the Most Wanted Terrorists - Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani - was arrested in Pakistan .
What difference would it have made?
Some of you affirmative action graduates would cry if you were hanged with a silk rope.
Here's my favorite Bush quote from the 2000 election;
Bush: The current administration had eight years to deal with that guy ( bin Laden ) and didn't get it done. If I'm elected, the first thing I would do about that guy is have Dick Cheney confer with our allies. And then Dick would present me with several options for dealing with that guy. And then Dick would tell me which one to choose. You know, as governor of Texas, I have to make tough foreign policy decisions every day about how we're going to deal with New Mexico.
Kind of says it all, doesn't it?
-->'Krongard also acknowledged that the CIA was still having trouble planting spies in Islamic militant ranks. “There are hundreds and hundreds of (Al-Qaeda) cells — it’s like a living, moving bit of protoplasm,” he said.
“In order to penetrate you not only have to be language-proficient, you also have to commit acts that exceed criminality. It’s very hard.” '<--
It seems that John Walker Lindh didn't have too much trouble getting into radical fundamentalist Islamic circles. If a naive and disturbed young man, who was the whitest of whitebread Americans, can do it, why can't our CIA find a hundred to do it for them?
Njorl
Were someone to notify the Feds that Atef was killed in the airstrike - on the official forms mind you - would that make that person eligible for the reward?
As much as I'd like to attack the Bush administration over this, it is almost certainly simply the case that the website hasn't been updated, not that the FBI isn't looking for Osama Bin Laden or al Zwahiri.
Blame them from being computer illiterate, and being totally ignorant of the value that a website update provides.
But not for being lax in looking for terrosts. At least not based upon this information.
Now, the Sibel Edmunds case is a whole different kettle of fish.
You think it takes 5 minutes to update a government website? Wrong.
I work in a government program, and to get a website changed you need a peer review, you need to submit a change request, you need to track the entire process via spreadsheet, and you need to have a committee meet to sign off on the peer-reviewed changes.
I wouldn't be surprised if the changes you want to see on the FBI site are already in the pipeline, and have been since 2001.
they probably outsourced the webmaster's job.
I know that there is a lot of classified rubbish related to the national security state... FBI, CIA NSC etc... but I would like to see a detailed published audit trail of ALL items spent by those agencies... from rent to salaries, to office machines etc.
It is hard to believe that you can spend BILLIONS of dollars and produce so little for it. I am sure there is ENORMOUS waste, pork and missppropriations.
We are being bled by the military industialists.
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agree with last comment, go to this blog's main page and check out some of the other posts by The Cunning Realist.
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Why did Bush give Tenet the Medal of Freedom?
If they had captured Osama bin Forgotten then he wouldn't have been able to make that campaign video for Bush right before the election. White people's fear of Arabs is so great that they go - "Oh No! An Arab! We have to vote for Bush because he can protect us so well like he did on 9/11."
It makes no sense that people would vote for Bush after he publicly stated that catching Osama wasn't a priority. I also don't understand the so-called PATRIOT Act - we give up our rights to open courts in order to not bring bin Laden to justice.
I agree with previous posters above that rest of this blog is worth reading, found some interesting writing here.
Osama who?
Oh please! You are trying to make too much sense! Since when does logic come into play with this administration??
Maybe the FBI is making a subtle statement. All the reports I've been reading seem to indicate that bu$h¢o are marginalizing the FBI and CIA, and concentrating all the power in Army Intelligence, which they are busy stocking with carefully groomed cohorts of "christians" coming out of the West Point pipeline. In other words, they are busy busy busy in their tireless repuglican way at corrupting the officer corps of the US Army, but then again what else is new.
As to binLaden and alZawahiri, did Hitler spend a lot of time "catching" Mussolini's generals?
I dunno, I just find it hard to believe it would be an oversight resulting from incompetence, or, rather, that the incompetence is systemic. Another one of the endless errors of omission and commission of the bu$h¢os, perhaps. They tell so many lies, and they can't keep track of all this shit.
They certainly have updated this page! Notice this line, "An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association."
I don't think these airline associations are too interested in a guy who just uses truck bombs in Africa... This can only be politically motivated. Another ridiculous example of how far this administration will go to control information. We shouldn't be able to read anything that hampers their ability to blame Saddam and Iraq for everything, now should we?!!
your post is premised on the misunderstanding that "wanted" posters display all of the crimes that an individual may have committed.
this isn't, in fact, true. the text of the indicated crimes comes in fact from grand jury indictments, which are very specific.
it is not even legitimate to criticise the FBI and DOJ for not convening a grand jury to indict these perps for 9/11-related crimes. the reason? they alread have a grand jury indictment on their heads. they can be charged with anything the government pleases when they are captured. but one indictment serves the purposes of law enforcement in their effort to apprehend someone. an additional grand jury indictment for 9/11-related stuff for bin laden would be a waste of time and money.
you're obviously not a lawyer.
great work...
though it sickens me that it's true
i work for the government, and their idea of an excellent computer is a 3 year old refurbished dell.
this computer web internet stuff is crazy talk to all the old world government folks. My boss still refuses to set up his infocus machine on his own, touch the printer, or even seem to realize when it's clicked on or off.
the government is not concerned about computer technology, and especially not INTERNET, thats CRAZY TALK (seriously, people at my building in the good ole place of DC ask me, what in the hell do i plan on doing with an IT degree... jesus fucking christ...)
And Bush presented a 'finding' to Congress that Iraq was 'involved' in the attack of 9/11.
This 'involvement' was grounds for invading Iraq, yet the central figure in that attack, whose location remains unknown to the greatest power on earth, is apparently not important enough to warrant a listing by the FBI.
What a crime. Bush should be impeached. NOW. And take Dick Cheney with him.
Yes because we all know we can't do our jobs if our web site isn't up to date. Your kidding about this being serious right?
interesting that the FBI pages contain javascript code labeled "data collection"
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