DON'T MAKE SY HERSH LAUGH

Systemic failure, the fondly brandished euphemism for failure to take personal responsibility, came in for more bashing yesterday. This time it was the Bush administration's former weapons inspector David Kay who did the bashing.

In what Philip Shenon reports this morning as "uncharacteristically caustic remarks," Kay pointed out that "until people and organizations are held responsible" at the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency for the "overwhelming failure" of intelligence in Iraq, he can't see how the appointment of a new, overall intelligence czar can correct things.

But even Kay avoided calling out the responsible individuals, key among them Condoleeza Rice. Though he put the blame squarely on her shoulders for misleading the Nincompoop in Chief and his waffling minion, Secretary of State Colin Powell -- nailing the fact that systemic failure is not some kind of faceless enterprise -- he "did not identify Ms. Rice by name."

Kay chose not to despite remarks "clearly aimed at her performance," Shenon writes, and reflecting "a widespread view among intelligence specialists that Ms. Rice, perhaps Mr. Bush's most trusted aide, and the National Security Council have never been held sufficiently accountable for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq war."

This criticism "mirrored that made earlier this year by Richard A. Clarke, Ms. Rice's former top counterterrorism deputy." But Clarke at least named her when he "accused her of paying little attention to dire intelligence threats throughout the spring and summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to strike against the United States."

Meantime, the latest "high-level Army inquiry" into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, expected to be released next week, according to another report in this morning's New York Times, will point to another instance of systemic failure. Translation (italics mine): "The inquiry found no evidence of direct culpability above the colonel who commanded the military intelligence unit at the prison," officials familiar with the report told the Times.

If it's any consolation to the tortured prisoners, to the seven low-level soldiers who've been charged with abuse, or to Americans who feel dishonored by what happened, the investigation is expected to blame "at least two dozen military intelligence personnel, civilian contractors and [CIA] officers for wrongdoing."

Yet, while the investigation faults the Army for "failing to provide leadership," senior commanders in Baghdad and the top commander himself, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, as well as senior Pentagon officials, "were found to have had no role in ordering or permitting the abuse." Parse that, if you can. It was the system's fault, not the fault of those running it. Lack of leadership equals exoneration of the leaders. That's where the buck stops. Never mind "Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." Now I get it.

Postscript: Have a look at the trailer for "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," a new documentary by Robert Greenwald.