Reflections Concerning National Security

By Dennis Lormel

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto once again demonstrates how fragile life is. It also reinforces how vulnerable democratic and open societies and those seeking free societies are to devastating terrorist attacks. This underscores the importance of national security.
The intelligence and law enforcement community, most notably the CIA and FBI, should be afforded the best mechanisms to collect, assess and act upon intelligence information. Agency leaders along with Director of National Security Mike McConnell have consistently articulated the need for enhanced intelligence collection capabilities. Unfortunately, over the past year a debate has raged in the media between enhanced intelligence capabilities, which would improve national security and the need to protect civil liberties. There is a perception in certain circles that enhanced intelligence capabilities place civil liberties at risk. The reality is, the lack of enhanced intelligence capabilities place our national security at risk. The assassination of Ms. Bhutto is a stark reminder of this.

We have been fortunate that we have not experienced a terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. An important reason for this has been the outstanding performance of the dedicated public professionals responsible for ensuring our national security and safety. They deserve our admiration and support. Many of these individuals work tireless hours, under constant stress, and adverse conditions. They seldom receive recognition for their dedication or accomplishments. To a great extent, these seemingly faceless people are the ones responsible for the fact that there has not been a terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11.

Unfortunately, the contributions, sacrifices and accomplishments of our protectors have been overshadowed. It’s somewhat disheartening that instead of accolades, the government seems to be mired down by those heaping inordinate fault and criticism. Certain media outlets and detractors of government intelligence gathering operations and techniques have excessively railed against select issues. Earlier this year, the FBI was taken to task over deficiencies in the use of National Security Letters (NSLs). At the present time, the CIA is on the firing line over interrogation techniques and the destruction of interview video tapes. These are serious issues that deserve serious attention. However, in the case of the NSL deficiencies the criticisms were overblown and out of context. The criticisms over the interrogation techniques have been relentless and verge on being overblown. In any event the harsh criticisms leveled at select issues have eclipsed the tremendous successes achieved on a daily basis.

This type of relentless media coverage and criticism is counterproductive and more harmful than helpful. The constant portrayal of government agencies as being more villainous than terrorists only serves to facilitate the ideological war being waged by terrorists. The fact of the matter is the terrorists are heinous villains. There have been few if any protracted media stories criticizing the reality that terrorists want to kill Americans and people like Benazir Bhutto who identify with Western values. A constant stream of stories exposing the senseless and cowardly acts of suicide bombers and terrorists would undermine their ideological war.

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