So the initial report of the joint inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees is out. I'm looking at this, and I see "Non-Story" written in big bold letters all over it.

Yes, better co-ordination would have been nice. No, that would not have stifled the political correctness that made the FBI unwilling to take action on Moussaoui. Yes, the FBI needs a good swift kick, and the CIA probably needs a new Director. But neither was on offer in this report, and without those things we'll continue to have a joke of a homeland security system.

Yes, they had those ECHELON intercepts of the phone conversations, indicating Sept. 11 was "the day." On Sept. 10, of course, the question was "the day" for what? A terrorist attack somewhere in America or Israel.

Gee, thanks Sherlock. That really narrows my options.

As for better warning, let's think over the past year. Remember all those warnings about the Golden Gate Bridge, SCUBA divers, and more? Remember the joke they quickly became as the public was overloaded with non-specific "information," and then the threats never materialized? Now consider that those reports were a highly selective and filtered sub-set of the stuff the government is receiving on a regular basis. That was actually the stuff they thought was most likely.

Are we beginning to see the problem here?

Do we all wish we had connected the dots? Damn right we do! Would we have ignored the warning if it was given, and all threats of that probability or higher were also issued as public warnings? Damn right we would have!

Repeat after me: if you want to know what terrorists are up to, infiltrate their organizations and the states that support them. Investigate terrorist suspects without hesitation and without mercy. Accept no substitutes.

I've written about the CIA's dismal performance in this area before. Don't disqualify potential agents because they did drugs once (hello? maybe inserting them as opium traders in Afghanistan would have been smart). Don't bungle walk-in recruits with solid Islamist ties, or refuse to take agents who have families in the Middle East. Don't hesitate to investigate potential terrorists because of mindless sensitivity about "racial profiling."

Of course, acting on those recommendations would require real cultural change. Unlike all this blather about moving bureaucratic chairs around or "co-ordination." What an f---ing cop-out that is. Back on July 3rd, I wrote:

"Real intelligence operatives. Unless we're doing much more of that, supporting those agents properly, and breaking enough windows to change the bureaucratic cultural incentives at FBI and CIA, all the blather about "reform" will be for nothing. And we still won't have the intelligence we really need."

That's still my position. And I didn't need a big Congressional Report to tell me that, either.