OT: Yo Witfal...

a great article. A few things jumped right out almost immediately:

1. The inter-agency sharing of info, heretofore legally restricted, needs to be addressed quickly.

1. Ridiculous laws regarding the CIA or NSA collecting domestic info need to be repealed.

2. So-called "intelliblog" writers within all spy agencies need to have more access to what can be termed top secret. I've read of where newspaper clippings or stories have been stamped with the red letters. Stupid.

1. Inter-system incompatibility issues due to antiquated soft and hardware need updating, and now. It seems clearly shortsighted that we're spending billions each week in Iraq and, at best, intelligence coups are hit-and-miss, while our computer systems lie in the dark ages. The example of "S E C R E T" (spaces between letters) slipping through indicates a lack of sophistication of algorithms used to filter, or find, what's restricted or needed. Improved systems are likely to give us many more victories than the occassional capture of one Al Qaeda operative.

2. Heads of intelligence services need to be held accountable immediately if they prove to be unwilling to grant access to another U.S. agency. Territorialism has no place in our intelligence needs of today.

I concluded that there are about 7 presidents we can blame for this mess. :-) No more Bush vs Clinton.

I agree that this could have been prevented completely.

However, Congress has some share in the blame. Inaction or downright obstruction due to partisan nonsense from both sides did nothing to help.