• TankieTanuki [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Related

    Detailing the suspicious actions taken by [CIA Alec Station Chief] Richard Blee and his subordinates before the 9/11 attacks would fill a book, and in fact Kevin Fenton has written that book. Most notably, Fenton documents an explosive series of events which demonstrates Blee’s role in preventing the activities of key 9/11 plotters from being discovered by the FBI or by senior members of the Clinton and Bush administrations. In particular, Blee’s statements to Condoleezza Rice and Richard Clarke are so out of step with what he knew about the activities of certain key al Qaeda members at the time that, clearly, the most plausible conclusion is that Blee intended to mislead them.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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      2 years ago

      Afaik that's par for the course for the pre-9/11 CIA and why reining them in and bringing them back under control of the Executive and Congress has been a recurring theme decade after decade. Back in the old days the CIA was notorious for acting on it's own, using all kinds of criminal fronts to secure it's own funding (very illegally), doing things without informing any of the people who were supposed to be overseeing them.

      It's a big part of the reason there was such a big shakeup in how US Intelligence operated post-9/11. They'd finally fucked up in such a huge, obvious, undeniable way that the government both couldn't ignore it and had a sufficient big stick to club them in to submission with.

    • FidelCastro [he/him]M
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      2 years ago

      The Bush Administration defunding and dismantling anti-terror efforts because they were all seen as a "Clinton thing" was written about previously by libs including Al Franken. That checks out.