As we approach the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of last September, Congress is finally opening hearings into the circumstances that surrounded the hijackings, and the possible failure of America’s intelligence system that may have allowed them to occur. This is not only appropriate, it is commendable: If flaws in our nation’s intelligence infrastructure made these atrocities possible, then those flaws need to be identified so that they can be eliminated. But like so many issues that are brought before Congress, the legislature has turned the opportunity to do something good into another forum for political pandering.
In this instance, this pandering has taken the form of the families of Sept. 11 victims. Word is running rampant across Capitol Hill that the Congressional investigation will open with a day of “testimony” from selected members of the families of those killed in the attacks. And then, after a day of filling America’s television screens with sobbing wives, husbands, parents and children, the committee will embark on its actual work: grilling the investigators who should have stopped the whole situation before it ever occurred.
Needless to say, having the coverage of its Congressional hearings skewed by a solid day’s worth of crying relatives has the intelligence community up in arms, and rightly so. While the pain and loss of the families of Sept. 11 victims is quite real and quite important, it has no bearing on the situation Congress is convening to consider: namely, the intelligence environment that may have fostered such losses.
“Who’s running this investigation-Oprah?” asked an unnamed member of the intelligence community when he heard the legislators’ plans.
We all know that people died. We all know that others suffer from these losses. We all saw it happen on our TV screens. How can dredging all this up again help Congress investigate the pre-Sept. 11 intelligence system? How can it help Congress make an impartial determination of where blame, if applicable, lies?
It can’t. In fact, such “testimony” will do the exact opposite. Beginning the investigation with a parade of victims’ relatives colors the entire affair in an antagonistic hue. Congress is practically saying to the CIA, NSA and FBI: “Look what you did! You have to answer for all these people’s losses!”
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It is possible that there were no gross breaches of procedures, no massive errors on the part of America’s intelligence community that precipitated to Sept. 11. We don’t know if there were systematic failures or if the attack was simply so well planned that no intelligence community could have been prepared, for nothing like this had ever happened before. That’s why Congress is holding these hearings-to determine the facts.
Isolating facts from the emotional sound and fury that engulf the Sept. 11 attacks will take a calm, organized and dispassionate investigation-one where the intelligence community doesn’t feel berated or antagonized, and is thus willing to work with Congressional investigators to root out the truth.
An effective investigation needs to be focused on a particular issue, in this case, the intelligence community, what it knew, didn’t know and should have known. The victims’ relatives have nothing to contribute towards this end, unless they all happen to be experts on international terrorism and security issues. Barring such a strange coincidence, their presence can only antagonize the intelligence community and distract Congress from its real work here. And for that reason, Congress should do the right thing, and put politics aside.
Let the intelligence community stand before the legislature without first being berated by a barrage of crying children and spouses. Focus on the issues, Congress, and leave the emotional pandering to Dateline and Oprah.As we approach the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of last Sept., Congress is finally opening hearings into the circumstances that surrounded the hijackings, and the possible failure of America’s intelligence system that may have allowed them to occur. This is not only appropriate, it is commendable: If flaws in our nation’s intelligence infrastructure made these atrocities possible, then those flaws need to be identified so that they can be eliminated. But like so many issues that are brought before Congress, the legislature has turned the opportunity to do something good into another forum for political pandering.
In this instance, this pandering has taken the form of the families of Sept. 11 victims. Word is running rampant across Capitol Hill that the Congressional investigation will open with a day of “testimony” from selected members of the families of those killed in the attacks. And then, after a day of filling America’s television screens with sobbing wives, husbands, parents and children, the committee will embark on its actual work: grilling the investigators who should have stopped the whole situation before it ever occurred.
Needless to say, having the coverage of its Congressional hearings skewed by a solid day’s worth of crying relatives has the intelligence community up in arms, and rightly so. While the pain and loss of the families of Sept. 11 victims is quite real and quite important, it has no bearing on the situation Congress is convening to consider: namely, the intelligence environment that may have fostered such losses.
“Who’s running this investigation-Oprah?” asked an unnamed member of the intelligence community when he heard the legislators’ plans.
We all know that people died. We all know that others suffer from these losses. We all saw it happen on our TV screens. How can dredging all this up again help Congress investigate the pre-Sept. 11 intelligence system? How can it help Congress make an impartial determination of where blame, if applicable, lies?
It can’t. In fact, such “testimony” will do the exact opposite. Beginning the investigation with a parade of victims’ relatives colors the entire affair in an antagonistic hue. Congress is practically saying to the CIA, NSA and FBI: “Look what you did! You have to answer for all these people’s losses!”
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It is possible that there were no gross breaches of procedures, no massive errors on the part of America’s intelligence community that precipitated to Sept. 11. We don’t know if there were systematic failures or if the attack was simply so well planned that no intelligence community could have been prepared, for nothing like this had ever happened before. That’s why Congress is holding these hearings-to determine the facts.
Isolating facts from the emotional sound and fury that engulf the Sept. 11 attacks will take a calm, organized and dispassionate investigation-one where the intelligence community doesn’t feel berated or antagonized, and is thus willing to work with Congressional investigators to root out the truth.
An effective investigation needs to be focused on a particular issue, in this case, the intelligence community, what it knew, didn’t know and should have known. The victims’ relatives have nothing to contribute towards this end, unless they all happen to be experts on international terrorism and security issues. Barring such a strange coincidence, their presence can only antagonize the intelligence community and distract Congress from its real work here. And for that reason, Congress should do the right thing, and put politics aside.
Let the intelligence community stand before the legislature without first being berated by a barrage of crying children and spouses. Focus on the issues, Congress, and leave the emotional pandering to Dateline and Oprah.
