Saying the CIA has an impossible job is only true insofar as the police have an impossible job, or the FBI have an impossible job. The police could never catch all the criminals that exist, the FBI could never investigate all federal crimes that are ongoing, and the CIA could never gather all useful intelligence that there is to gather.

There are two relevant points. One is that the CIA is very useful at gathering and countering intelligence-gathering against other governments and para-military organizations.

The other point is that the larger the organization (the more state-like it is in size and scope) the more likely there is to be intelligence about official plots that could threaten the United States which can be gathered using an aparatus like the CIA.

If there is a smattering of independent resistance cells in Iraq, or worse yet an underground, popular uprising, you're right that they might have a hopeless job. Just because they might be ill suited at the moment in Iraq doesn't negate their usefulness. My guess is the insurgents may not always know the master plan in Iraq, so how could the CIA found out what the enemy doesn't even know? If the terror attacks are crimes of opportunity, then there could never be a good way to prevent them.

The real problem the CIA is facing is a perception problem. If al-Qaeda today were operating as a centralized, top-down organization as they apparently were for the 9-11 plot, they might be taken to task on infiltrating and confounding them. As best as I understand, al-Qaeda is effectively decentralized, thanks in large part to the war in Afghanistan.

The problem we face today is that wherever terrorism pops up, immediately it's dubbed "al-Qaeda". This might serve as a clarion call to war against them, but suggesting that they are part of a grand scheme, still orchestrated from the remote mountainous regions of central Asia both grossly over-estimates the power of the enemy to organize, and grossly over-tasks the CIA to stop all para-military terror actions.

The CIA could be taken to task to enter a chess match with a rival intelligence agency. It simply can't be taken to task to combat complete anarchy and chaos.

And I feel this is what is being done when al-Qaeda sympathetic, but officially unconnected, terror organizations are dubbed "al-Qaeda".

In this situation I am reminded of a political cartoon that appeared around the time of Israel's Six Day War. In the cartoon Israeli forces -for their own security- pushed deep into the Himalayas, and were meeting resistance. "Would you believe it," one of the soldiers says "anti-semitism..even here!"

I think the cry of al-Qaeda is becoming our anti-semitism. The problem I see, boorite, isn't that the CIA is ill-equipped, but that the perception is they should be tasked to deal with this broad, impromptu terrorism under the perception that it is all al-Qaeda.

A last point in defense of the CIA. Moreso than most other organizations, you never hear about their successes. And to the extent that other nations might be sponsoring terror in Iraq to hurt the U.S., you might never hear that the CIA is having success in combatting or identifying the sources of these attacks.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

You can criticize the Executive branch, but you can't expect them to gather their own intelligence. Failures of intelligence gathering fall onto the CIA.

I'm not sure the specific failings of the FBI to which you refer. I think they were tailing some or all of the 9-11 hijackers, and just weren't legally able to arrest them. Likewise the airports could no longer afford the potential discrimination lawsuit when their countries of origin, along with the other suspicious details about their flights bookings, sent up red flags. To that extent the Patriot Act relieves some of this burden from the FBI.

If you're talking about inter-agency communication, I think that's what the Dept. of Homeland secuirty and the 9-11 commission are attempting to address. I'm not sure what you're asking to be done that isn't being done, and I'm not sure what you want the CIA / FBI to do that they aren't doing.

In my opinion the FBI has done their job. The most high level actor in the 9-11 operation was busted via the FBI working with the Pakistanis (Shiek Muhammad, pictured below). The FBI can't do much to track down Osama when he's most likely outside Pakistani jurisdiction.

As far as I know the FBI isn't a predictive agency. The CIA to some degree is. The best way to fix this would be for the CIA to provide a threat matrix based on the active personnel they are aware of and share this raw data with the FBI. I believe at least one of the hijackers being tailed by the FBI had a history the CIA was aware of but the FBI was not. You can't put the pin back in the grenade but you can fix the problem for the future. I don't think it's cause to dismantle the agencies though.

If the executive branch was sitting on its duff while the FBI and CIA continued to not communicate I could see cause to complain. If the CIA director hadn't relieved himself in light of the failures of intelligence regarding Iraq I could see cause to wonder why Bush was still trusting the agency leadership.

Bush lately has articulated a hands-off policy on the Iraqi attacks, saying that the country needs to learn to defend itself. I think this speaks to your "zooming out" point. Yes, maybe there's some al-Qaeda or extra-national-sponsored terrorism going on, but the homegrown attacks will continue as long as the U.S. is posturing its forces in Iraq. We just need to stop posturing as the protectors of Iraq, which is my interpretation of the administraiton's latest strategy.

I don't see an express problem with us protecting the "home bases" of democracy in Iraq, as the fledgling government would be in dire straights without knowing their government buildings aren't going to be blown up underneath them, that their oil pipelines aren't going to sabotages, and certainly securing the U.N. when they get back in there would be a job worthy of U.S. forces, at least during transitional periods.

But patrolling trouble areas in Iraq is a job for local secuirty forces. England doesn't ask Italy to bring along secuirty forces for a soccer match to keep fans in check when Great Britain is hosting a game. Iraq eventually needs to capacity to police its own homegrown rogue militia groups. This was one of the earliest lessons of America (Shay's rebellion) and still has lessons for us as recently as Waco.

From there our FBI can coordinate with the Iraqi police and military forces, and our CIA can begin snooping out spies from our barracaded embassy, and the U.N. can start offering relief again with some reassurance they won't be butchered.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

No, but funnily enough, Portugal have been liasing with British police on how to stop hooliganism in and around grounds*, with some success.

Just a technical point.

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Please replace the handset, and try again.