Rep. Pete Hoekstra: "Being lucky can't be our national security strategy"
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that U.S. intelligence efforts have to be better. “Being lucky can’t be our national security strategy,” Hoekstra said. “We were lucky on Christmas Day. We were lucky last week.”
It is all so heartbreaking.
The FBI found the Times Square bomb suspect a few hours after he planted the truck in his ill-fated attempt to make history. He leaves a set of keys in the truck. The keys allow the FBI to find him in Connecticut.
As investigators trail him during the day, then they lose him:
Authorities had tailed Shahzad throughout the day, but lost him before he arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he was ultimately arrested, the official said.
However, an FBI official responded that surveillance operations are designed with redundancies in place, and that agents had to avoid tipping off Shahzad that he was being followed.
Does anyone believe that hogwash?
We lost him on purpose so that he wouldn’t be tipped off that we were following him? That would make sense only if they were hoping he would take them to a posse of cell members. In this case, the suspect was merely taking them to the check-in counter at JFK.
No worry, “we have redundancies in place”.
Such a lie. Redundancy would mean that another team would pick up the trail seemlessly. That maybe a satellite would temporarily track him while they switched vans. Nothing of the sort appears to have happened. The suspect was lost, until he made another amateur move that is.
The suspect paid for his Dubai airplane ticket with cash. That understandably seems to serve as an alert to the airline staff, which often advise security officials on site of such unusual events. The FBI’s redundancy was, just like the car keys, the suspects’ own stupidity…not knowing he would raise alarm by buying a one-way ticket from JFK to Pakistan via the crossorads of the Middle East.
To make matters worse, despite the suspect being on the “no fly” list, the airline didn’t check it once the entire list of passengers was assembled. Since our suspect hadn’t checked-in online or whatever you need to do to fall into the pool of passengers that get reviewed in advance of boarding the flight. Since our suspect merely called Emirates to book a flight to Pakistan, walked up to the counter and paid for his ticket in cash, he slipped through a system that looks like swiss cheese.
Passengers are advised that the international cut-off time for boarding a plane has to be at least an hour so that various security protocols can be followed.
What hogwash. Our suspect is sitting on the plane before his name is noticed on the no-fly list by the TSB centre in Virginia. The FBI’s “redundancy” seems to be a team of people that had nothing to do with the actual ongoing investigation, and found the suspect via the mundane process of checking passenger manifests. The airline only alerted security officials about the cash payment hours later, after he’s in custody.
Redundancies? Even with repeated red flags, the suspect was never found again. Until he’s sitting on the plane, with the door closed, just a few minutes away from freedom. Where are the heralded redundancies?
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder can’t possibly believe this is an example of the type of effort that will keep the continent safe. How heartbreaking.
Tens of billions a year for increased security, and even the dumb ones, making every mistake along the way, almost get away:
“Being lucky can’t be our national security strategy”
MRM
I love when politians take centre stage after the fact and give brilliant advice like U.S. intelligence efforts have to “be better.”
Yep. Care to give us real advice. No – just “be better.”
I completely agree with the overall message of your article, however to give credit to Mr. Hoekstra and to give him additional press is questionable.
I would first have you submit what Mr. Hoekstra put forward – specific solutions – after the Christmas episode. If he’s just the guy that yells there is a fire – and does nothing about it, why are we validating his comments.
So I did a quick search on his track record. And within his Wikipedia entry we find an older article “Rep. Pete Hoekstra Details His Breakthrough WMD Report”
“These weapons continue to pose a threat to our troops. They continue to pose a threat to the people in Iraq. And, perhaps, if these weapons were ever transported somewhere else, they would pose a threat to citizens of other countries.
These materials are still very, very deadly”
– Rep. Pete Hoekstra. 2006
Now here is a man with creditability! Hence my concern for continuing to give him a platform.
“As of September 17, 2007 some news outlets reported that the Congressional committee Hoekstra had overseen had created “erroneous” and “misleading” reports about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” – Hoekstra Wikipedia entry
Let’s quote real leaders. With solutions to issues. Not the first guy to yell fire.
This comment isn’t meant to take away from presenting and addressing an important issue – just the person you’ve chose as the messenger is very questionable.