| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front |
| Senator Shelby Says Sept. 11 Report Too Soft on CIA, FBI |
| 2002-12-10 |
| A leader of the Senate intelligence committee criticized on Tuesday a congressional inquiry into Sept. 11-related intelligence failures as too soft on U.S. agencies, especially the CIA. The report stops short of assigning enough blame to the FBI and CIA, Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and one of CIA Director George Tenet's harshest critics, told ABC television on Tuesday morning. A joint inquiry by the Senate and House intelligence committees has drafted a final, mostly classified, report that is expected to face an approval vote on Tuesday. "Some of the people on the committee don't want to assign the blame or the accountability," Shelby said. "I am not one of those people." The CIA and FBI have been criticized for missing potential clues that, if pursued, critics say, may have led to unraveling the plot that sent four hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. "Perhaps some of it could have been prevented," Shelby said of the Sept. 11 attacks. "There were a lot of missed signals, a lot of non-sharing of information." Shelby continued to heap criticism on Tenet. "There have been more failures on his watch as far as massive intelligence failures than any CIA director in history. Yet he's still there," Shelby said. "It's inexplicable to me." Me too. Shelby hinted that he might support a minority report from the intelligence committee harsher than the one to be released on Tuesday. "I will come forth with minority views, with my own views, and I believe there will be others who will join me," he said. About damm time. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 From what I've read, Tenet attoned for himself with the successful CIA-led operation in Afghanistan. He got special kudos from GWB for having a network in place in northern Afghanistan prior to 9/11, and getting the CIA paramilitary boys in place quickly. That might have saved his bacon. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-12-10 22:28:31 |