Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11
- ISBN-10
- 0691120218
- ISBN-13
- 9780691120218
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 317
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2007
- Author
- Amy B. Zegart
Description
In this pathbreaking book, Amy Zegart provides the first scholarly examination of the intelligence failures that preceded September 11. Until now, those failures have been attributed largely to individual mistakes. But Zegart shows how and why the intelligence system itself left us vulnerable. Zegart argues that after the Cold War ended, the CIA and FBI failed to adapt to the rise of terrorism. She makes the case by conducting painstaking analysis of more than three hundred intelligence reform recommendations and tracing the history of CIA and FBI counterterrorism efforts from 1991 to 2001, drawing extensively from declassified government documents and interviews with more than seventy high-ranking government officials. She finds that political leaders were well aware of the emerging terrorist danger and the urgent need for intelligence reform, but failed to achieve the changes they sought. The same forces that have stymied intelligence reform for decades are to blame: resistance inside U.S. intelligence agencies, the rational interests of politicians and career bureaucrats, and core aspects of our democracy such as the fragmented structure of the federal government. Ultimately failures of adaptation led to failures of performance. Zegart reveals how longstanding organizational weaknesses left unaddressed during the 1990s prevented the CIA and FBI from capitalizing on twenty-three opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot. Spying Blind is a sobering account of why two of America's most important intelligence agencies failed to adjust to new threats after the Cold War, and why they are unlikely to adapt in the future.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2009-02-17
- 336 pages
- Ebook
- Princeton University Press
Similar books
-
Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage
By Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drewphoto courtesy of Harris M. Austin Cochino 's commander . . . : U.S. Navy photo, courtesy of Rafael C. Benitez Red Austin, 1939...: courtesy of Richard M. Austin Cochino's men survived ... : photo and back note courtesy of Harris M.
-
Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
By Amy B. ZegartIn Spies, Lies, and Algorithms, Amy Zegart separates fact from fiction as she offers an engaging and enlightening account of the past, present, and future of American espionage as it faces a revolution driven by digital technology.
-
Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC
By Amy B. ZegartChallenging the belief that national security agencies work well, this book asks what forces shaped the initial design of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council in ways that meant they ...
-
Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying
By James M. OlsonAuthor's comment: The most notorious of the CIA's “defectors” are Edward Lee Howard and Philip Agee. Howard was dismissed from the CIA in 1983, after a polygraph examination revealed drug use, alcohol abuse, and petty thievery.
-
Spying for Wellington: British Military Intelligence in the Peninsular War
By Huw J. DaviesTORRES. VEDRAS,. 1809–1810. The first real test of Wellington's use of strategic and operational intelligence came during the buildup to and execution of the third French invasion of Portugal. Preparations for what became known as the ...
-
Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence
By Joshua Rovner2 (January 1976), 207–233; and Thomas W. Wolfe, The SALT Experience: Its Impact on U.S. and Soviet Strategic Policy and Decisionmaking (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1975). 59. Joseph Alsop, quoted in Cahn, Killing Détente, 83. 60.
-
Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community
By Amy B. ZegartI testified at that hearing, along with Lee Hamilton, who served as the 9/11 Commission's vice chairman and earlier as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Pointing his finger at all the senators ...
-
Blind Man's Buff: Bannister's Muster, Book Three
By Barbara Gaskell DenvilWith the royal family in trouble and a war on the horizon, it is time for action from the bravest group of children in this world-- or any other!
-
The Blind Spy
By Alex DrydenA story almost literally ripped from the headlines, The Blind Spy is a gripping, smart adventure that crackles with authentic modern spycraft—an absolute must-read for fans of John le Carré, Alex Berenson, Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady ...
-
Harriet the Spy
By Louise FitzhughBefore she can stop them, her friends have read the always truthful, sometimes awful things she's written about each of them. Will Harriet find a way to put her life and her friendships back together? "From the Trade Paperback edition.