The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 9)

p>Kudos on the article. br> -- R.H. "Tex" Houston br> http://www.ranchgazette.com /p>

Jed Babbin may be correct in his oblique assumption that it was Sen. Richard Shelby who leaked the information regarding the NSA-intercepted phone call from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia. Shelby, never camera-shy (well, exactly who in the Senate isn't?), has a well-known animus for CIA director George Tenet, although his disdain for the SIGINT operators at Fort Meade, at least to this reader, has been less well-publicized. If he's guilty of this leak, then indeed he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.

p>All this being said, the leak undoubtedly led to James Bamford's "Outlook" piece in June 2002 in the Washington Post where he detailed the sorry state of NSA's linguistics sections in the languages of the region. According to Bamford, on September 11, you could "count the Pashto and Dari speakers at NSA on one hand and have fingers left over." It does little good to have a high-volume electronic vacuum sweeper at NSA if you have no one there to read the intercepts and piece together the bits. Just about the only good thing that has come from these leaks is that the public at least now knows just how incapable this country's intelligence operations were and probably still are in fighting a shadowy, disciplined enemy like al Qaeda. Unfortunately, things aren't apt to get any better by creating another elephantine bureaucracy in the guise of the Homeland Security department when we need to get meaner, leaner and smarter. br> -- Bill Harrison br> Arlington, VA /p> p>

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