Is fear of prosecution contributing to defense failures?

November 16, 11:11 AMHomeland Security ExaminerJohn Duffey

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U.S.A.G. Eric Holder - Seeks to Prosecute CIA Agents.

Writer commentary - Is the fear of being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General’s office a major contributing factor in the communications failures that allowed for the Fort Hood Terrorist Attack? Many say that it is a major factor of consideration in the minds of military, intelligence, and law enforcement agents throughout the Federal government. It has been tossed around throughout the FBI and CIA, by contacts who have asked to remain silent, that if there wasn’t such a head-hunt going on in Washington that communications and information would be easier and more forthcoming between agencies.

There are three areas where information was available but not shared in the Hasan terror attack case. One was the Department of the Army, the other was the Joint Terrorism Task Force, headed by the FBI, and the third was the Central Intelligence Agency. Like puzzle pieces, the individual elements of information on Nadil Hasan and his communications with terror leaders were inconclusive. But, each piece adds to other pieces, possessed by the other agencies, and when put together make a picture, or a whole of the condition. These pieces never came together in much the same way as what occurred just before the 9/11 attacks in 2001. So, what is going wrong?

In the eight years of the Bush Administration, the Department of Homeland Security distributed and coordinated information and activities of several key intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Prior to the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, each agency had a horrible habit of hording information and conducting independent, uncoordinated activities. That is what allowed, or contributed greatly to, the events of September 11, 2001. After the Bush Administration, information hording has resumed. Many are puzzled by this behavior within the law enforcement and intelligence ranks of the Federal Government. What is causing these agencies to hold back while generating the appearance of cooperation and information sharing?

The CIA is especially worried about sharing information with agencies who may turn around and arrest them for the means by which the much needed information was gathered. Oh, certainly the DOJ and FBI would act to stop a domestic terrorist attack that they were completely oblivious to prior to being notified by the CIA. But, they would also turn around and prosecute the CIA agents for the means and methods used to acquire the information, even if they weren’t the ones who performed any unlawful act. For instance, if Saudi Intelligence Officials use the methods that their government considers lawful to extract important information out of a captured terrorist and shares that information with the CIA, the DOJ and FBI would most certainly still seek to ruin the receiving agents because the information came by what is defined solely by the U.S. as torture.

So, who would want to share information with the very agency who will later seek to imprison them for gathering it? When we, the American people, consider how the Ft. Hood attack was allowed to happen when so many people knew so many things we should take into account the U.S. Attorney General’s desire to imprison intelligence operatives for doing their jobs and in doing so he has created a fatal reluctance to share critical and time sensitive information with other agencies.