Home
In this issue
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 8, 2005 / 7 Kislev, 5766

Too many of the same people who demanded the 9-11 commission to protect against future attacks also ready to kick intelligence workers for their every mistake

By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's truly a shame that the panelists on the 9-11 commission were such self-important windbags — their 41 recommendations, they never fail to remind, were (all bow) "unanimous and bipartisan" — that they blew their chance to make this country safer.


Don't' get me wrong. Washington has been unconscionably slow in doing the practical things needed — such as providing a radio spectrum for emergency first-responders — to make America more secure. The panel also was right to criticize the Senate for larding a homeland security spending bill with pork.


That said, the panel's hodgepodge recommendations — the radio spectrum was the panel's 27th recommendation, yet it magically moved to the top of the list in the commission's devastating report card — allowed the good stuff to get lost. It didn't help that Congress and the Bush administration were better at acting on the panels' many meaningless or wrong-headed recommendations than practical reforms.


What do I mean by meaningless? Try: The panel refused to take a stand on the Patriot Act. Instead, it recommended that the executive branch make a case for "retaining a particular governmental power" and suggested there be a "full and informed debate."


And here's wrong-headed: As Judge Richard A. Posner, a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, noted in his new book, "Preventing Surprise Attacks, Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11," the panel was wrong to push for more centralized intelligence and Washington was wrong to heed that call. As Posner noted over the phone yesterday, "Whenever you take a bunch of agencies and pretend to turn them into one agency," there is a loss of momentum as employees worry about their jobs and work at re-establishing a chain of command. "These reorganizations generally do more harm than good."


Another problem with "blame commissions," as Posner called this panel: "One unfortunate consequence is that the people who get blamed for an undesired outcome are the people who were doing their best — and their best may have been very good — to prevent it from happening," Posner wrote. So, as America was clamoring for better intelligence, the panel issued recommendations designed to "weaken the CIA."


I prefer Posner's recommendations to those of the 9-11 commission: Detailed evacuation plans for major buildings, biometric screening by U.S. Customs officers at ports of entry, inspecting incoming freight, better airline passenger screening, training more Americans in Arabic, Farsi and other languages, more spies, diverting money from the "war on drugs" to counterterrorism and creating "a domestic security agency on the model of England's M15."


It would help if Americans — and the media — got real about how you fight terror. They demand better intelligence, but are hostile to the CIA. Critics want the government to discover domestic terrorist plots, but oppose the Patriot Act.


It's time for the American media to stop expecting perfection. There seems to be a crusade for a war without setbacks and for intelligence-gathering that doesn't invade anyone's privacy. That's simply and utterly unrealistic.


There is also an odd hubris in expecting any set of recommendations to prevent, "surprise" attacks. Acting on panel recommendations, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, boasted that "just as the National Security Act of 1947 (which established the CIA) was passed to prevent another Pearl Harbor, the Intelligence Reform Act" — which she authored — "will help us prevent another 9-11." As Posner noted, "She overlooked the fact that 9-11 was another Pearl Harbor."


And, let me add, Collins is the chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which produced a pork-heavy homeland security bill earlier this year.


Posner observed, "Our government has somehow gotten into a position where it's extremely difficult to accomplish anything."


I'd say that it's nearly impossible. What Americans don't need, they get — pronto. A top-heavy intelligence apparatus has already made it through Congress: Washington can overload a bureaucracy in record time. But the radio spectrum for first responders is simply too practical to be urgent.


Too many of the same people who demanded the 9-11 commission to protect against future attacks also have been ready to kick intelligence workers for their every mistake. That's simply not intelligent.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.

Debra J. Saunders Archives

© 2005, Creators Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works