"With regard to the "principals" meetings, on agenda and minute distribution, assuming that neither of us are in
any position to state definitely how that is organised. Within the organisation I work in, although at a fairly senior specialist level, I do know that I do not receive notification or agenda for top level meetings, my immediate superior does. Likewise minutes of those meetings are not distributed outside of those who attended. Parts affecting my area of expertise are transposed into either memo's or specific instructions which are then followed. From that I may be able to deduce what was discussed in relation to my specific area, but as that is indirect, I only get specifics if changes to what is already in progress have been proposed and adopted. As you say let's wait and see what comes out of next Thursdays appearance of the NSA before the Commission."

in short, you don't know anymore than i do. ok, next...


"On procedures, drafting of them and their development. I believe that in this particular instance, in terms of
personnel, apart from the person at the top, i.e. the NSA, there were no changes between the outgoing Clinton
administration and the in-coming Bush administration. The personnel and procedures had proved to have been
successfull previously, therefore, to those engaged in the work in hand, there was no indication that anything hadbeen screwed up by the previous bunch. In fact there was absolutely no oversight or review of the process, and nobody qualified to undertake such a review. 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). Such a review would take time, sucha shift in emphasis would take time to evaluate and implement. The time-frame we are talking about here is not measured in days or weeks, done thoroughly and correctly it's months."

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...??!!

"We are discussing this subject in an open forum. If you wish me to restrict my responses specifically to what you have stated, then this becomes a private correspondence and can be continued using the PM facility offered bythis site."

what i requested is that when answering statements made by me, as you indicated you were, please don't lump me into your generalizations about forum participants. i am an individual who attempts to speak clearly and i try to refrain from such generalizations about you. i am not requesting a private correspondance but merely a respectful one. i am glad to answer in kind.

"You state your belief that the principles upon which your country was founded have been surrendered and you think that there are other ways to deal with the changed world we have discussed. I would only be too pleased and interested in hearing about them - so far you have offered nothing, apart from suggesting the following:"in the current case declassifying all the testimony of the principals including the emails and communications of rice and clarke to let people make up their own minds rather than being subject to political spinmeisters would be anastonishingly bold expression of faith in the american people to decide their own fates in the world."While the above might represent, "an astonishingly bold expression of faith in the american people", it would also amount to an astonishingly generous gift to your enemies."

amazingly enough, freedom and democracy and their principles contain contradictions. a government by the people means people must be able to know what their leaders are up to. transparancy is required. when you don't have that some say the secrets must be held to thwart our enemies. those who actually believe in freedom and democracy realize that when government stops being open you start to lose that which you hold dear. having an open, free and democratic society has always been a risk. i prefer it to the police state.

"The transparency you seek, sounds very similar to the situation described in detail by Richard Clarke, before the9/11 Commission, relating to the prevailing attitude within the CIA in the past, one of near-paralysis with people being almost too frightened to act, for fear of being dragged up in front of some committee or other and publicallycensured for doing their jobs."

those who work at the CIA and other organizations that are so hidden that congress can't even see their budgets should be held to the highest standard. if that is so frightening to the folks there maybe we need some new folks or some new ideas on how to run our intelligence operations. judging by the current rash of excuses about all the "bad intelligence" that caused our fearless leaders to make the mistakes in iraq, it seems more of them should have been "dragged up in front of some committees".

"In terms of formulating a "coherent strategy" in combating international terrorism and "gathering the world's
power", whatever that means, your current President has not done too bad a job so far. International
co-operation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies has never been better, and it is constantly beingimproved. You disagree, your recommendation is to change administrations and adopt a new and as yet
unspecified approach."

i disagree that GWB has done a good job internationally. i don't feel like rehashing all the figures but if you look up the number of nations commiting troops and resources on our behalf, i don't think it's impressive or compares favorably with the last gulf war. could you cite any sources or facts on how much better international law cooperation is now? that seems to me speculation on your part.

"Yes there have been more terrorist attacks since 9/11 - but where? Directed against whom? What has been their result? How many of the perpetrators have been caught? How many attempted attacks have been prevented?"

where/whom?...what does that matter? lives lost are lives lost whether american or iraqi. result?...many people killed most spectacularly recently in madrid...perps caught? i don't know. do you?...attacks prevented?... neither you nor i know that. the information we are given on that is suspect.

"The "means we are now following" has saved lives, as to an alternative approach - I await your recommendations."

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. also, hopefully, an administration that will not use lies and manipulation to goad the american people into wars that are about agendas that are not revealed to us other than under extreme pressure and until it's too late to do anything but clean up a colossal mess. nothing i could recommend will take place under the current pack of rogues that is looting our treasury and making us a pariah in the world.