Cofer Black interview

[noise]

From the Men's Journal interview with Black:

Q: Do you wish you had done more?

Black: A lot of people ask, Don't you feel responsible for 9/11? Absolutely not. We were the only ones in the fight. We held the line and fought as hard as we could with the resources we had. Looking back, I can't think of a damn thing we could have done that would have changed anything.

(Copied from the magazine. I don't think there is a link to the interview).

It only requires journalists to connect two dots:

1. The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/10/fbi-prevents-agents-from-telli.html">FBI Prevents Agents from Telling 'Truth' About 9/11 on PBS

2. Black was head of the CTC from June '99 through May '02.

[noise]

1. Men's Journal published the interview

on their website: Cofer Black, Out of the Shadows

From a recent speech at Columbia University:

“We were grossly overmatched,” Black said of the CIA’s attempts to act on intelligence in the summer prior to Sept. 11. “We didn’t have enough people, we didn’t have enough money.”

Former CIA Official Discusses American Safety Then and Now

From the executive summary of the CIA IG report in relation to funding:

Funding for the Agency's counterterrorism programs increased significantly from Fiscal Year (FY)1998 to FY 2001 as a result of supplemental appropriations. These funds were appropriated, in part, because of the efforts of the CIA's Director and senior leaders to convince the Administration and Congress that the Agency was short of resources for counterterrorism and other key programs.

The Team did find, however, that during the same period they were appealing the shortage of resources, senior officials were not effectively managing the Agency's counterterrorism funds. In particular, Agency managers moved funds from the base budgets of the Counterterrorist Center and other counterterrorism programs to meet other corporate and Directorate of Operations (DO) needs. The Team found that from FY 1997 to FY 2001 (as of 9/11),____________ was redistributed from counterterrorism programs to other Agency priorities. Some of these funds were used to strengthen the infrastructure of the DO and, thus, indirectly supported counterterrorism efforts; other funds were used to cover nonspecific corporate "taxes" and for a variety of purposes that, based on the Agency's budgetary definitions, were unrelated to terrorism. Conversely, no resources were reprogrammed from other Agency programs to counterterrorism, even after the DCI's statement in December 1998 that he wanted no resources spared in the effort. The Team found that the Agency made little use of the Reserve for Contingencies to support its counterterrorism effort. Finally, CTC managers did not spend all of the funds in their base budget, even after it had been reduced by diversions of funds to other programs.

PDF version of the IG executive summary

The CIA wasn't tasked with preventing terrorist attacks inside the US. That was the FBI's job. Sharing intel with the FBI required no additional agents and no additional funding.

[wildbilln864]

2. thank you, nt