I’m one of those people who happen to think only Osama bin Ladin is to blame for 9-11, and that the fact that prior to the attacks no one entertained the idea of such barbarity to be normal. Before the Manson murders no one thought drugged up hippies would slice open a pregnant women, and before WW II no one though England could be hit with rockets launched from Germany. The fact that Clinton “botched” killing bin Ladin doesn’t actually mean much except that he and the Reno justice department and most of the government didn’t understand how serious a threat Al-Qaeda and fourth generation warfare was to America. That’s not a crime, because if it was we’d all be in jail.

So I hadn’t planned on hyping the recent revelation that the Clinton Administration didn’t have a workable plan for eliminating bin Laden. I was reading through the C.I.A.’s recently released report and trying to find a way to digest this admission by our supposedly sinister spy agency that, as some have expected all along, they just aren’t that good. From USA Today:

“Concerning certain issues, the Team concluded that the Agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner,” the report says before advising the CIA director to empower a panel of outsiders to review the accountability of certain employees.

The investigators say they didn’t find any evidence of illegal activity or other misconduct. Instead, they point to evidence that some “individuals did not perform their duties in a satisfactory manner.”

Among the problems the investigators found:

• CIA’s counterterror center was focused on tactical and operational matters, not the sort of strategic issues that it was supposed to be coordinating for the federal government’s intelligence agencies.
• CIA Director George Tenet didn’t do enough to elevate counter-terrorism “in the formal ranking of intelligence priorities.” The report blames Tenet for the lack of an “integrated, interagency plan” of attack against al-Qaeda. The inspector general recommends that Tenet’s actions be reviewed by an Accountability Board.
• CIA managers “were not effectively managing the Agency’s counterterrorism funds.” This includes expenditures that weren’t related to terrorism. As a result, the inspector general suggests that an outside board review the actions of the executive director and those who ran day-to-day operations, including the head of the counter-terrorism center.
• Most of the officers assigned to the unit that was supposed to be leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden “did not have the operational experience, expertise, and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner.”
• The CIA had intelligence “from credible sources in 2000 and 2001” that “included that allegation that [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] was sending terrorists to the United States to engage in activities on behalf of Bin Ladin.”
• The review found significant gaps in the analysis of intelligence. According to the report, the CIA never produced a “comprehensive strategic assessment” of al-Qaeda, nor had it prepared a “comprehensive report” on bin Laden since 1993.
• Despite reports that the Clinton administration wanted bin Laden killed, the inspector general says the government “did not provide clear direction or authorization for CIA to kill Bin Ladin or make covert attacks against al-Qa’ida.”
• The review says cooperation was “hampered” because the CIA and the Defense Department argued in the late 1990s over “the cost of replacing lost Predators,” the drone aircraft that proved so helpful after 9/11.

The Clinton revelation is startling, but the fact is this reads like a report on a dysfunctional non-profit, not a government agency that is responsible for keeping America safe. The full report is here and if you’ve ever had to turn in a grant report or evaluate a program, you’ll recognize right away what was going on in the C.I.A., a bunch of people who weren’t good at their jobs bumbled the way into 9-11 and should have been fired well before that.

The director has a statement about releasing the report here, unsurprisingly he wasn’t happy about doing it. I should think so, since this report must be very reassuring to all our enemies around the world.

Hot Air points out that Madeline Albright’s testimony to congress conflicts with this report, which is something we on the right should be hyping.

Meanwhile, as the left and right begin to fight it out over this latest issue, the Jihad marches on.