Fox News has this blockbuster story on American Al-Qaeda Imam being invited to a lunch in 2002 inside the Pentagon. Despite ties to three of the 9-11 hijackers, and arrests for soliciting a prostitute, the Pentagon’s office of general counsel found Anwar al-Awlaki a suitable person to make a presentation to top brass on Islam and Middle East culture.
The story notes:
A former high-ranking FBI agent told Fox News that at the time Awlaki went to lunch at the Pentagon, there was tremendous “arrogance” about the vetting process at the Pentagon.
“They vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice of others,” the former agent said.
But one single person seems to be responsible for this mess, a female lawyer in the Office of General Counsel who was responsible for vetting al-Awlaki:
The Defense Department lawyer who vetted the imam wrote that she “had the privilege of hearing one of Mr. Awlaki’s presentations in November and was impressed by both the extent of his knowledge and by how he communicated that information and handled a hostile element in the audience.”
The story does not reveal the identity of the culpable lawyer. If ever there was a time for accountability, this is it.
What is wrong with hearing a presentation by your enemy? You can learn alot on how to defeat your enemy by listening to them.
Remember George C Scott in “Patton” saying that he had read Rommel’s book.
Patton read Rommel’s book, not Goebbels’.
Reading a book….entering our Pentagon. Let me contemplate the moral equivalency…Wow, I get it. We need to hear presentations by our enemies because: 1) They ALWAYS tell their enemies the truth! 2) They never use such a presentation to add to THEIR intel efforts; 3) we have such dull intelligence officers that we need our enemies to come to us instead of going to them where they make real decisions.
Yeah, this makes a LOT of sense to me…
In 2002? Why trust the Pentagon, the Defense Department, the State Department, or any of our other intelligence agencies after members of our Executive Branch received pathetic information (intelligence which these agencies claimed was thoroughly vetted) concerning WMDs in Iraq?
Oh, I see, now. The White House needs to get the mainstream media off their tails for ditching one of our most favored allies (and the only ally in the Middle East). Thus, this story comes out and blames whom else but President Bush.
Typical.
PC reigns supreme and has for years. Remember our mad Muslim Major who no one dared call a “mad Muslim?” There are more commies in the White House today then queers. So what is the surprise that some numb nuts lawyer botched it again? What else do they do?