Rick Raw 2:

Bloated Spy Agencies Morph Into Gridlocked Bureaucracy

By Rick Grant Commentary

After the tragic 9/11terrorist attacks, the U.S. intelligence network expanded exponentially in the government’s typical overreaction to the aftermath. Soon, just about anyone who wasn’t a felon and was savvy about computers got top secret clearances. Before long, the vast labyrinth of intelligence services grew to 1,200 different government agencies.

The new intelligence initiative was housed in hundreds of the nondescript white building around Washington D.C. that the IRS wasn’t already using. Yeah, our government loves to form giant bureaucracies to solve problems.

Worse yet, 1,900 private companies became involved in the counterintelligence operation, homeland security, and endless intelligence gathering programs. People were literally stumbling over each other to find out information. Meanwhile, bin Laden lives in a cave with no communication equipment, no electricity, and no computers. He runs his war by couriers bringing and sending notes.

In contrast, our counterintelligence agencies turned into the Jabba the Hutt of  inefficiency and overlapping agencies. A throng of operatives in large computer filed offices daily sift through thousands of pages of data. An avalanche of paper flowed into these data crunching computer labs. Each separate agency was involved in infighting to get credit for intelligence coups.

In this overloaded atmosphere, an estimated 854,000people hold top-secret security clearances. More people; more offices; more computer data meant that these thousands of intelligence analysts couldn’t see a single tree for the forest.

The intelligence community’s motto: “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.” Throw piles of data at hundreds of analysts and something might stick out. In contrast,  our enemies --the Taliban and al Qaeda-- wage their war living in primitive conditions, carrying ammunition on donkeys and sleeping in caves with no amenities. These holy warriors are in it for the long term– across the time spectrum of Centuries.

Then, outrage ensued when we find out that out of the 854,000 people with top secret security clearance, 265,000 are private contractors. 70% of our intelligence service has been outsourced to private companies. These private security firms are a growth industry. The exact amount of money paid to private contractors is a carefully guarded secret and there is a critical lack of oversight for this booming business.

This explosion of outsourcing our intelligence operation to private companies has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures during the Bush and now Obama administrations. Terrorists can slip into America or be activated citizens easily, since our overcrowded intelligence service couldn’t find their asses from holes in the ground.

One of the most embarrassing intelligence failures happened during the Bush administration. After the “shock and awe” bombing campaign and the mass invasion of ground troops, our WMD inspectors discovered that Saddam Hussein didn’t actually have any weapons of mass destruction. It was a bluff.

Of course, this was after Condoleezza Rice testified before congress that we would surely see a mushroom cloud over Iraq if we didn’t invade. Then we found out that Hussein not only didn’t have nukes but had no relationship with al Qaeda, which was another justification for sending troops to Iraq.

By then it was too late. Soldiers were dying and we were committed to bringing down Saddam Hussein no matter how many civilians got killed in suicide bombings and our inability to fight our enemy’s style of guerilla war. Yeah, we send in a Predator drone to kill an entire village to terminate one suspected terrorist leader.

We go in heavy and clunky–bombing the bejuses out of every living or dead thing on the ground. Then we send in columns of Humvees and tanks in convoys, which make perfect targets. They could hear us marching into war miles away.

Now, our enemies can just walk into America, while the thousands of analysts weed through reams of paper data looking for a sign that something is not Kosher. Our enemies must laugh at our overblown efforts to gain intelligence while they eat a Big Mac and plan their next attack from a comfortable apartment in Jersey.