Robert Baer: "biggest mistake the Bush Administration made was not criminalizing 9/11"

[sabra]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1902335,00.html?iid=tsmodule

Counterterrorism: A Role for the FBI, Not the CIA
By Robert Baer

<snip>

The biggest mistake the Bush Administration made was not criminalizing 9/11 and making the FBI the lead investigator. This would not have stood in the way of Pakistan arresting 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (K.S.M.). In a war of ideas, we would have been well served as a country to have put K.S.M. on public trial, confronting him with damning evidence and exposing the bloody insanity of a man who has caused the death of more Muslims than anyone in modern history. But now, thanks to waterboarding and other interrogation abuses, this option may be closed off to us. (Read "Why the CIA Turned Down Dick Cheney.")

Another problem with not giving the 9/11 investigation to the FBI was that we did not get a full account of what happened on 9/11. The CIA analysts who prepared the questions used in the interrogations wanted to know one thing: when and where was the next attack coming. By the time it came around to asking K.S.M. about the archeology of 9/11 — such as who recruited the 15 Saudis, the muscle — K.S.M.'s responses could no longer be relied on. After the daily waterboardings, he said anything he thought his interrogators wanted to hear.

A lead FBI role on terrorism does nothing to prevent the CIA from collecting as it has in the past. It can forward leads to the FBI, and let the FBI decide the evidence it should follow up on or, as often as not, discard.

Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know.

[rocktivity]

1. Well, duh.

In criminalizing 9/11, Bush would have run the risk of criminalizing HIMSELF.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[Ezlivin]

2. The FBI could have arrested a lot of different people

Perhaps one day there will be a full-blown, independent investigation.

Then we'll know who really terrorized us on 9/11.

[MarjorieG]

3. Admin wanted to occupy Iraq; I don't buy Cheney's claim that he reacted to 9/11, solely, in what

what came next. Not due to terrorist fear, etc. Intelligence fixed around ideology, which was to privatize Iraq for business.

Certainly, we should rely on our leaders to act with cool, and a world view.

[underpants]

4. There is little to bill for in a police investigation

War, bombs, and "security" oh yeah you can bill for all kinds of stuff for that

Oh and Halliburton was available to handle all those sorts of things....which is nice