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Wednesday, June 23, 2004 |
 WT. Analysis of US victory against al Sadr's militia. Of course, who won? Sadr is free and building an authorized political party. Despite Sadr's mismanagement (his militia fought open battles with US troops), he gained his objectives.
5:45:57 PM 
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NYT. New book by the former CIA manager of the "bin Laden station" says the US is losing the war on terrorism.
"U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious," the officer writes. "We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency — not criminality or terrorism — and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces."
"There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq," he writes. See global guerrillas for more on this.
"After the next attack," he adds, "misled Americans and their elected representatives will rightly demand the heads of intelligence-community leaders; that heads did not roll after 11 September is perhaps our most grievous post-attack error."
I concur with these statements. Over time, it won't just be Islamicists we are fighting.
5:32:54 PM
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WP. The 2003 Patterns of Global Terrorism report was deeply flawed. It was rife with bad data and simple math errors. Today the CIA manager of the team that assembled the report, John Brennan, blamed the errors on antiquated computer equipment and personnel shortages. In the private sector, he and his team would be looking for another job right now. It speaks volumes that they aren't. Where is the accountability? Civil service rules and a culture of bureaucracy prevent this. Where are the high quality people from the private sector that can provide the exptertise, rigor, and creativity necessary to fix this and other failures? Antiquated cold war security requirements and deeply ingrained patterns of organizational nepotism prevent this. Expect more and potentially devastating failures in the future. The fact that we can measure this failure is unusual. It is the tip of the iceberg.
5:09:13 PM
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AT. Interesting dynamics in South Korea due to the beheading of a citizen by a new Iraqi terror group. First, is the reliance of the country on a South Korean private military company to negotiate for his release (this is a trend). Second, citizens inundated Al-Jazeera for his release (media as proxy). Third, the country's American style response: a call for military action to revenge the killing.
6:09:57 AM
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Global guerrillas in Algeria. A main electricity network node was car bombed in the nation's capital. This follows the assassination of the leader of al Qaeda's Algerian start-up. NOTE: Global guerrilla tactics are being adopted as the old terrorist leadership is removed.
5:27:14 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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