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Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failure Led to September 11 (Paperback)
by Bill Gertz (Author) "TWO U.S. AIR FORCE TECHNICIANS sat in a windowless room at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, watching a bank of video monitors..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, World Trade Center, New York (more...)
		
	
 
38 customer reviews (38 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
From the bestselling author of a scathing indictment of Clintonian foreign policy, Betrayal, comes an unbalanced but revealing expose on the mistakes, misdirections and blunders behind "the most damaging intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor." Gertz supports his argument that the intelligence community has "lost sight of its purpose and function" with interviews, news clips and almost 100 pages of government documents, some partially classified (a National Security Agency report reproduced within contains little but the date and the designation "TOP SECRET UMBRA"-the rest is "withheld at the request of U.S. intelligence officials"). He points a very stern finger at the FBI, the NSA and the CIA, "where preservation of the agency's budget takes precedence over its performance." In one confounding case, Gertz writes, veteran CIA field agent Robert Baer was investigated and nearly prosecuted by the FBI for planning an assassination of Saddam Hussein; when the CIA discovered their jig was up, they left Baer out to dry. But while the insights into a government overrun by bureaucracy can be fascinating (and infuriating), Gertz seldom assigns any blame toward either George H.W. or George W. Bush's policies in the Middle East. He saves his condemnation, instead, for the Clinton administration (again). This one-sided portrayal may leave the critical reader feeling as if only half the story is being told, as Gertz's strong conservative bent distorts what could have been an important and well-informed look at the terrorist disaster.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The New York Times
Chilling...[Gertz] stokes the public's demand for a more rigorous intelligence apparatus.

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Product Details

    * Paperback: 320 pages
    * Publisher: Plume; Rev Upd edition (May 27, 2003)
    * Language: English
    * ISBN-10: 0452284279
    * ISBN-13: 978-0452284272
    * Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
    * Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces
    * Average Customer Review: based on 38 reviews. (Write a review.)
    * Amazon.com Sales Rank: #223,657 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
TWO U.S. AIR FORCE TECHNICIANS sat in a windowless room at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, watching a bank of video monitors. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, World Trade Center, New York, White House, State Department, Saudi Arabia, Cold War, Directorate of Operations, Middle Eastern, Pearl Harbor, Saddam Hussein, Defense Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, Persian Gulf, Church Committee, Counterterrorist Center, James Woolsey, Soviet Union, Coast Guard, East Africa, Robert Mueller, Senate Select Committee, Counterterrorism Center, Customs Service, Egyptian Islamic Jihad
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Citations (learn more)
This book cites 6 books:

    * The China Threat by Bill Gertz in Front Matter
    * Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision by Roberta Wohlstetter on page 70
    * Latin America by Arthur Morris on page 68
    * See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer in Back Matter
    * Latin America (Western Man and the Modern World) by Jonathan Avory on page 68

See all 6 books this book cites
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38 Reviews
5 star: 	34% 	 (13)
4 star: 	28% 	 (11)
3 star: 	13% 	 (5)
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132 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
Let's get serious please..., August 26, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)
Does anyone really doubt that there wasn't a huge intelligence failure that led up to 9/11? All of these terrorist killers just materialized out of thin air? Political correctness, bureaucratic infighting and just miscellaneous stupidity couldn't have come into play as well? Our government was preoccupied with Clinton and Monica, the false War on Drugs, anything, anything, anything except those that bombed our embassies in Africa, blew up the USS Cole, killed our soldiers in the Saudi Arabian Khobar towers, etc. Lots of great wishful thinking (maybe the Taliban will hand Bin Laden over) too... It's a crying shame and let me tell you this dear readers, author/journalist Bill Gertz is a major patriotic American to tell the truth to us like this. You know, the people that failed us are still running the system! And as Coleen Rowley so bravely said, and I paraphrase, should we put the counterterrorism unit chief and his supervisor (the fools Maltbie and Frasca that messed up the Moussaoui matter) in charge now? Tenet stills runs the CIA. This is American accountability? What have we really learned since 9/11? Thank God for this book, I hope it causes a real storm and makes people upset, upset enough to demand change!

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16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Helpful, August 29, 2002
By 	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)


The author has done a wonderful job, without reference to any of the fifteen books on intelligence reform published between 1999 and 2000, in quickly reviewing the key elements of intelligence failure and in recommending some specific reforms that thus far have been denied by successive Administrations.

If this book forces policymakers to think, and makes it possible for the public to get very angry about the various failures of intelligence that contributed to 9-11, then it will be in the running for most patriotic and useful book of the year.

The author leaves one aspect of the 9-11 failure untouched--although he makes references to Democratic and to Republican policymakers, what he does not tell the American people is that intelligence failures do not occur without very substantive policy failures of two kinds: first, policy failures where the intelligence professionals are gutted, abused, intimidated, and generally prevented from being effective. The Director of Central Intelligence usually serves as the policy representative to intelligence in carrying out these abuses, rather than as the intelligence representative to policy. The second failure is one of "inconvenient warning," where solid professional intelligence estimates are set aside and ignored because the politicians don't want to be bothered, don't think it will cost them with their domestic constituencies, and are not truly committed to long-term national security. This is a bi-partisan problem--until the American people appreciate the connection between voting, policymaker character, and intelligence success, we will continue to get the government--and the intelligence community--that our citizens deserve.

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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
US Intelligence Isn't, August 30, 2002
By 	Rob Northrup "Entrepreneur" (Norcross, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)
A quick informative read.

Gertz makes a strong case against the Clinton administration for its "politicization" of the US intelligence apparatus (CIA, NSA, etc). He also describes the ridiculously naive and stupid PC-based regulations which we have implemented which hamstring our field intelligence-gathering abilities. We should have been able to at least have a fighting chance at preventing 9-11, but not with the dysfunctional intel community described here.

Gertz also provides a brief plan to correct these major problems. This book is worth the two-three hours you will invest in it.

 Comment | Was this review helpful to you?  YesNo (Report this)


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  	Most Recent Customer Reviews

Government Bungling - Again!
Gertz begins by relating how, prior to 9/11, the CIA failed to help an Afghan leader trying to rally forces against the pro bin Laden Taliban. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Pragmatist

A little right biased
This was a informative book that outlined what Gertz thought was the reason Sept 11th happened. Though these were problems left over from countless decades of neglect to the... Read more
Published 23 months ago by J. Grammer

Excellent reminder of how 9.11 was a complete failure for
both the CIA and FBI. Mr. Gertz, the excellent correspondent for the excellent (meaning not anti-Bush/republican NY Times/Wash. Post/CNN/CBS/ABC,etc. Read more
Published on May 12, 2005 by a

"Breakdown" Wears Blinders
"Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11" by Bill Gertz provides an operational history of America's spy community. Read more
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The sum is less than the parts
A few days before writing this, Congress approved the 'Intelligence Reform Act of 2004'. I thought this book might be useful for understanding the exceptionally difficult issues... Read more
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If People only Knew
A pretty good synopsis of what's hampered our intelligence services, but a bit too harsh when passing blame. Read more
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Interesting, Informative & Important
This is an important book about some major problems with our nation's intelligence community and intelligence infrastructure. Read more
Published on November 19, 2004 by Seth Cooper

Bush wouldn't get rid of Osama Bin Laden
More than 3 years after Osama Bin Laden and his gang attacked us we still are having to deal with his threats. Read more
Published on October 30, 2004 by Carmen J. Lopez

Bin Laden and Saddam Fooled Loverboy Clinton & Queen Hillary
While Bill Clinton was busy turning the oval office into a sewer and Hillary was busy preparing to be the next Evita Peron, the radical Islamic terrorists were busy waging war on... Read more
Published on September 24, 2004 by A. SANTAQUILANI

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