If you’ve been tracking the discussion about Iraqi documents you know that my position is that we are a long way from getting to the bottom of this situation. How long? You might consider the length of time it took to come to this conclusion about another situation related to Iraq. You might also note…

CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program. The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the…

The imagery . . . . . . or the memories . . .

150+ pages is a lot to go over with a day job, so I’ll take a meta-view by focusing on the Conclusions . . . My problem with all of these reports is highlighted in the first paragraph of Section II, when they invoke “The Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor ….” My dictionary defines…

A former Pentagon analyst who passed highly classified intelligence to two Chinese military officers was sentenced to three months in prison yesterday — far shy of four to five years called for in sentencing guidelines. His excuses sound eerily similar to those given by Jonathan Pollard when he passed classified to the Israelis (he got…

FIVE YEARS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, we face many threats at home and abroad, yet our response has been mostly superficial and expedient. One is left to wonder: Are we serious about winning this fight? So begins my latest piece at The Daily Standard. As one friend jokingly put it, “so this…

ABC’s upcoming five-hour docudrama “The Path to 9/11” is quickly becoming a political cause célèbre. […] After a screening of the first episode in Washington last week, some audience members attacked the film’s depiction of the Clinton administration’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden. Among those unhappy was Richard Ben-Veniste, an attorney and member of the…

A nice analysis of the airborne terror threat then and now by Shane Harris in National Journal. The broad point to take away is the value of defense-in-depth, or layers of security that (hopefully) are designed to catch those bits that fall through the cracks. For you INFOSEC folks this is nothing new, but all…

Listening to snippets of the AG and President about the new CT strategy throughout the day brought to mind three things: The first is that it is nice to see that someone has finally dusted off and started reading all those assessment my colleagues and I wrote about terrorism and the ‘Net not that we were the…

Regrettably, I’ll be a few days late in town for this event, but I’ve already weighed in to some extent. The bottom line is that you can be a competent, serviceable and respected (in some quarters at least) reporter on the national security / intelligence beat and never have to worry about fielding the “aid…