Jeff, If you're interested in the question of how bureaucracies handle decision making, I can recommend a couple of studies I read during my undergraduate days, in the late 70s: One is THE ESSENCE OF DECISION, which is a study of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison. The other is GROUPTHINK, by Irving Janis. They're a bit on the academic side, rather than popular writing, but they're worth a look. BTW, it's becoming clear that while the original agent who has been mentioned, recently, the guy who wrote the analysis suggesting that flight schools had to be looked at was taking a chance, career-wise, the women agent who just made her complaint that another investigation was being sabotaged public has placed her career squarely on the line. Sadly, every now and then, a bureaucracy **needs** some brave people to court destruction to fix them. Think of it as a corollary to the admonition that the tree of liberty needs to be watered, from time to time, with the blood of patriots

OK -Humint took a nosedive in the '70s. But we never truly had it. While the country has had 1000's of native speakers in virtually any dialect known to man, the Ivy league didn.t recruit them. When they had tons of data, they didn't interpret it. The Cold war is full of intelligence failures. They will continue. The down side is if we do play down and dirty-we may probably (in some circles) be the thing we despise most. I am currently in favor of down and dirty coupled with not turning the wheel any faster than it wants to go. Learn-slow down-interpret. Whaen the fog clears-Decide!

Thanks for the tip on the books. I'll try to find them in the library. Yes it is a shame that the FBI and other intelligence bureaucracties are trying to crush the few people who stick up. One reason I believe is that Congress since the 70's starting with Senater Church makes these agencies less willing to put up with individuals. Any deviation from the conventional "politically correct" wisdom is sure to be punished. To be cynical "no good deed goes unpunished". I am sure you can regal us with stories from your congressional days. What's your take on this and how would you restructure the intelligence community if you were "king for a day".

As I see it - and don't read too much into this - there are two general problems: 1)Culture - Don't get too caught up in any one issue. The big picture is that over something like 25 years, a culture emerged among elites which was strongly anti-active intelligence. By elites, I mean politicians, many bureaucrats, party people, academics and the media. It was almost always easier to take the "bash the CIA, FBI, police, whatever" stance. You were practically guaranteed attention and approval. Politicians built careers on it. Arguing against some perceived outrage or other - real, imagined, potential - was an easy way to get positive coverage, and media coverage is the lifesblood of politicians. Taking the opposite stance meant, at best, you'd probably be ignored, and risked being made the butt of some serious criticism. And, this, in turn, explains how the bureaucracy reacted. Being too strong in favor could be a career killer. Going along with the political trend was a good way to advance your career. Sooner or later, when a new Administration came in and looked for people to change things, you were handy. The folks arguing the other side became political liabilities. They were the impediments to change. Guess how their careers wound up? These things involve people in various roles who feed off each other. This is one example how that can work. 2)Bureaucratic ossification. There's a process inherent in bureaucratic organization which causes ALL bureaucracies to screw up, over time. Sooner or later, what may have started as an efficient, highly motivated organization will begin working more slowly, and producing results which deviate, markedly, from their ostenible mission. This sort of thing went on four thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia and Egypt. It went on in Rome. It is ancient history in the Catholic Church. Washington isn't immune. There is a whole subspecialty of political science dealing with bureaucracies. "Bureaucratic politics" is a field in itself. The problem is that you have an elaborate structure which wields real power, but is to some degree outside the control of the person or persons who are the ostensible executive of the country. What you get is bureacrats who build their own little kingdoms, wielding their effective power more and more for their own interests and ends and less and less for the reason they're supposed to be their. Also, when political structures get complicated, and multi-leveled, you see more and more situations where the real way they are held to standards is by paper rules. IOW, they have to satisfy specific conditions, which are, themselves, more and more divorced from the general policies which concern the top level of government. And, bureaucracies are famous, through history, for meeting the paper goals, rather than serving the real policy ends. They aren't judged by those policy ends. The heads of government ARE. But, the bureaucrats, especially the ones in the middle and lower levels, have to meet specific paper goals. There incentives are to meet the paper goals, rather than the higher policy ends. Sooner or later, you always get instances where the low level makes decisions which are actually CONTRARY to the policy goals, because, in doing so, they meet their actual performance goals. For instance, the school system which, faced with demands to improve the performance of students, lowers standards, so that, on paper, more students meet the goals, even though, in reality, what the bureaucracy is REALLY doing is decreasing performance, rather than increasing it. What should be done? Generally, ALL bureaucracies need to be pithed and regrown, from time to time. One thing, specifically, is that people need to be held accountable for mistakes. IOW, people need to lose jobs over major screwups. The RIGHT people, btw, and this, in turn, means that the process of rebuilding the institution needs some serious attention from the highest level of government, to ensure that changes are productive. In the present climate, I'm afraid, Congress and the Administration may ALL have some reason to want to sweep the problem under the rug, because ALL share some serious responsibility. This affects BOTH parties, too. The Clinton years were a disaster, which gives the dems a reason to want to ignore the problem, and the Republicans may, too, for being left holding the bag for 9-11.

Very well said:)Right on the mark I think.

your comments shed some light on why Bush wants more small nuclear devices. He can can put more of them on a MIRVed ICBM and with their greater accuracy take out opposing ICBM sites directed at us. There is some method to this madness. He wants more targets for his buck from a reduced number of our ICBMs. FAEs would not likely have HE force to crater these sites.

Somebody asked why the US is discarding ICBMs but not their warheads. I guess that the real reason is money. Nuclear weapons are frightfully expensive. While an ICBM might cost about $50M, each one of its warheads may well be 2-5 times as expensive as that when you factor the overhead in. When you've spent so much money on anything, it's perfectly natural that you should be rather reluctant to just throw it away.