Ethical Dissent Saves Lives, Money
By Gary Aldrich (07/24/03)
Two draft reports are making their way to the printers as I write. Both are products of months of investigation and examination of evidence of high-level government incompetence. Insiders in each of the agencies knew well of missteps and missed opportunities within the bureaucracies, but their complaints and warnings went unheard.
The general malaise common in every bureaucracy eventually contributed to two terrible disasters, resulting in massive loss of life. Both incidents could have been prevented if only the federal government utilized the human intelligence agents working inside the agencies in question. Of course I’m referring to the many honest and brave bureaucrats who were alarmed enough to come forward, but were ignored or rebuffed by management or political leaders.
Eleanor Hill, staff director of the investigation which will be made public in the form of a report to be released on July 24, advised that the findings related to the attack on September 11, 2001 are the result of nine public hearings and 13 closed sessions conducted last year by a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
“…in general it will give the public a pretty clear picture,” said Ms. Hill, who agreed to an interview with David Johnston, a senior New York Times reporter who covers the federal agency beat. One key finding is that the C.I.A. failed to have sufficient human resources on the ground in Afghanistan and other known hotbeds of international terrorism.
What the report will not say is that for years senior investigators within the C.I.A. had been warning that the standards for recruiting human sources had been raised too high, making it nearly impossible to find informants who could withstand the unreasonable level of scrutiny imposed by the U.S. Senate and made into policy by the Clinton Administration.
There were other problems within the key agencies responsible for keeping our nation safe. For example, the congressional panel has put together impressive evidence that the F.B.I., C.I.A., and N.S.A. missed several warning signals of the attacks. What the report will probably not say is that the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. were ordered to avoid sharing any information between agencies when the F.B.I. engaged in criminal investigations of international terrorism.
This was because the Clinton Justice Department feared that information obtained through a criminal investigation, including the results of federal grand jury testimony and documentary evidence collected, would taint future prosecutions as well as break federal laws protecting secrecy of grand jury proceedings.
Moreover, Clinton’s policy choice forced the sensitive ways and means used by both agencies, including informants and clandestine surveillance equipment (such as high-definition satellite imaging) in the pursuit of deadly terrorists, to be subject to disclosure and compromise.
In other words, because Bill Clinton chose to have an “Investigation on Terrorism” instead of using a military response to the many bombings and killings, including one massive attack on a U.S. warship in a foreign harbor, the intelligence agencies were hobbled from conducting aggressive probes which might have uncovered Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack our soil.
The direct advantage to Bill Clinton and his administration in having an investigation instead of an outright war, is that he could appear to be doing something while avoiding the real risk of sending U.S. soldiers out to do the job that needed to be done.
But the eight years of damage done to the F.B.I., C.I.A. and the N.S.A. was not unknown, nor was it ignored – except by the oversight committees that could have blown a whistle to stop it. First of all, the many ethical dissenters within these three agencies knew the impact of each of Clinton’s policies and were ready, willing and able to give testimony to any House or Senate intelligence committees interested in hearing about it.
In fact, I know that many senior investigators did exactly that – they came to the Hill at great risk to their careers to warn just how the Clinton policies were putting this country at great risk. If senators and congressmen were concerned after hearing from the many whistleblowers who made this dangerous journey, they apparently were too timid to take action. They should have listened to the whistleblowers.
It’s doubtful that their report will make mention of the many warnings they were given. Instead of taking responsibility for a collapse of agency oversight responsibility, they will prefer to place the blame on the intelligence community. After I took up my new position as an F.B.I. agent assigned to Capitol Hill, I learned quickly that one unwritten function of the F.B.I. was to fall on the sword when required to do so by the White House. Presumably, the House and Senate – in charge of the agencies’ budget requests – would also favor intelligence agency management that took their medicine with silence and a smile.
So, too, the report on the NASA shuttle disaster is ready to be printed and released. The blame will be placed on the agency, as if significant cuts to NASA’s budget in the area of safety were something the agency officials favored. Budget cuts were all the rage during the Clinton Administration, who spent more time exploring diversity and sensitivity than whether a shuttle could get off the ground and back to earth safely.
But the breakdown of practices and procedures that caused the shuttle disaster will be outlined in yet another lengthy report tiptoeing around the fact that many NASA ethical dissenters openly questioned the advisability of these budget cuts, and were trying to warn of disaster right up until the final hours of the shuttles’ fiery plunge to earth.
I am certain that if the truth be told, we would find out that many of these NASA employees, hired for their excellence and honesty, made treks up to Capitol Hill after realizing their own NASA managers were deaf, dumb, and blind to the dangers.
Congress and the White House ought to start encouraging and listening to the many “human intelligence agents,” who reside within each of the aforementioned agencies, if they have a real interest in saving lives, property, and the reputation of the United States.
Otherwise we might conclude that “the system” is only interested in avoiding responsibility by papering over two recent disasters caused, in part, by clueless politicians and incompetent bureaucrats.
We should encourage and listen to the whistleblowers if we wish to avoid repeating history.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Gary Aldrich
