Systemic failure, the fondly brandished euphemism for failure to take personal responsibility,
\ncame in for more bashing yesterday. This time it was the Bush administration’s former weapons
\ninspector David Kay who did the bashing.<\/P>
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In what Philip Shenon reports this morning as But even Kay avoided calling out the responsible individuals, key among them Condoleeza Kay chose not to despite remarks “clearly aimed at her performance,” Shenon writes, and This criticism “mirrored that made earlier this year by Richard A. Clarke, Ms. Rice’s former Meantime, the latest “high-level Army inquiry” into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, expected If it’s any consolation to the tortured prisoners, to the seven low-level soldiers who’ve been Yet, while the investigation faults the Army for “failing to provide leadership,” senior
\n“until people and organizations are held responsible” at the National Security Council and the
\nCentral Intelligence Agency for the “overwhelming failure” of intelligence in Iraq, he can’t see
\nhow the appointment of a new, overall intelligence czar can correct things.<\/P>
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\nRice. Though he put the blame squarely on her shoulders for misleading the Nincompoop in Chief
\nand his waffling minion, Secretary of State Colin Powell — nailing the fact that systemic failure is
\nnot some kind of faceless enterprise<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> — he “did not
\nidentify Ms. Rice by name.” <\/P>
\n
\nreflecting “a widespread view among intelligence specialists that Ms. Rice, perhaps Mr. Bush’s
\nmost trusted aide, and the National Security Council have never been held sufficiently accountable
\nfor intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq war.”<\/P>
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\ntop counterterrorism deputy.” But Clarke at least named her when he “accused her of paying little
\nattention to dire intelligence threats throughout the spring and summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was
\nabout to strike against the United States.”<\/P>
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\nto be released next week, according to another report in
\ninstance of systemic failure. Translation (italics mine): “The inquiry found no evidence of
\ndirect culpability above the colonel who commanded the military intelligence unit at the
\nprison,”<\/I> officials familiar with the report told the Times.<\/P>
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\ncharged with abuse, or to Americans who feel dishonored by what happened, the investigation is
\nexpected to blame “at least two dozen military intelligence personnel, civilian contractors and
\n[CIA] officers for wrongdoing.” <\/P>
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\ncommanders in Baghdad and the top commander himself, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, as well as
\nsenior Pentagon officials, “were found to have had no role in ordering or permitting the abuse.”
\nParse that, if you can. It was the system’s fault, not the fault of those running it. Lack of
\nleadership equals exoneration of the leaders. That’s where the buck stops. Never mind
\nNow I get it.<\/P>
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