Guest from NW,

"i would think that "procedures" might be inspected by an incoming administration to assure that things haven't been bollixed up by the previous bunch that they campaigned so hard against. i'm not sure how this process has occured in this case so i'm not in a position to identify the person/persons who should be held responsible but i would think that senior officials in the administration should find this type of responsibility in their job description. am i wrong?"

Policy might, strategy might, existing procedures that appeared to be working and effective? The senior personnel, apart from the new President's National Security Advisor, remain the same, so who does the new administration bring in to inspect the existing procedures. Rather difficult considering the subject matter. They could of course use personnel from the existing security agencies, but that would, by necessity, divert resources from the task in hand wouldn't it? By the accounts of those in charge, the effort being made to combat the threat, was not diminished in terms of personnel or resources at any time during the transition of administrations.

Just to go back to what I did say regarding what happened when the Bush administration took over:

"What was done, if statements made so far are to be believed, was that the policy regarding international terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda was under review (Clinton's containment and marginalising v Bush's aim to actively seek the destruction of Al-Qaeda)."

In that sentence, I believe I specifically mention "policy", therefore your latest comment:

"so there was no oversight or review, no one qualified to make such a review, yet there was a review underway which would, of course, take months to complete. so no body could possibly be judged responsible...??!!"

Rather mystifies me - you are talking about a review of procedures, while the review that was under way that I mentioned, was a review of policy - we are talking about different things here, government policy is not the same as the working/operating procedures of a government agency.

Still no alternative solutions, I see, apart from:

"can you cite figures on lives saved? i don't think so. there are certainly high figures on lives lost. my recommendation on another approach is to replace this administration ASAP with people that have a clue about diplomacy and how to create cooperation among western countries that can have a program to combat terrorism that is more than throwing bombs back and forth."

To answer your first question to, "cite figures on lives saved" - no, of course I can't. But I would imagine the projected numbers would be quite impressive from just one of the most notable examples. Quite a few months ago now, in a combined operation linking the intelligence agencies of the USA, UK, France and Russia, an attempt by a UK national to supply upwards of 30 advanced, state of the art, Russian shoulder launched SAM's to what he thought were Islamic terrorists in the USA was foiled and three men arrested. His suggested/recommended target was a simultaneous attack on fifteen civilian airliners on take-off from various airports in the US. Now carefully select your airports, link that to weather where the aircraft take-off so that their flight-path is over densely populated areas, destroy wide-body aircraft on long-haul routes fully laden with fuel - the numbers that would die on the aircraft, would be an impressive enough strike, but combined to the cone of devastation caused by those aircraft hitting the ground, then you could be into the tens of thousands - good enough for you?

You propose to fight terrorism with diplomacy? - good luck to you, you'll need it. The above example, provides some indication of the degree of co-operation already in existance. The EU has just recently, in the light of the Madrid bombings, decided to co-ordinate efforts on counter-terrorism still further.

Brucie, has suggested a UN strike force to counter terrorism. The problems that would have to be overcome to create such a force are such that it could never happen. The UN as an organisation is just simply not structured for such a role, which is not surprising, it was never meant to fulfil such a role, it is primarily a talking-shop. For arguements sake, if such a force was created, for it to have any chance of succeeding, it would largely have to be American run, American funded, American equipped.