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Let's Give the CIA Its Due
 Terrorists haven't been 'lucky' here since 9/11By Charles McCarry Richard M. Helms, the first director of Central Intelligence to rise from the ranks, was fond of saying that the CIA had been founded to make sure that there would never be another Pearl Harbor. Underlying this mission impossible was the wishful supposition that an America that knew everything could prevent anything. The CIA's job was to keep an eye -- a jaundiced eye -- on the whole world, friend and foe, weak countries and strong ones alike, as a means of preventing catastrophic surprises. For more than 50 years, on the whole, the magic worked. And then, on Sept. 11, 2001, another Pearl Harbor happened. The CIA was not spared when blame was handed out. An intelligence failure had occurred and the result was the loss of 3,000 lives, billions in destroyed property, and incalculable damage to the American psyche. In terms of the original illusion concerning an all-knowing intelligence service, the agency was fundamentally at fault. In reality, it is not likely that any system then in existence could have identified the terrorists (19 obscure youths out of a 2001 world population of 6.1 billion) and forestalled their crimes in the absence of a colossal stroke of luck. On 9/11, it was the terrorists, not their victims, who had all the luck. Posted by: Steve White 2009-01-12 |
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