CIA director George Tenet gives a presentation on “What U.S. Intelligence Does for You” at a town hall in Los Angeles. The Millennium threat scare and the Y2K rollover now behind the threat watchers, Tenet is all swagger and promotion.
“We have, since July 1998,” Tenet boasted, “in partnership with governments around the world, helped deliver to justice more than two dozen terrorists—more than half of whom were linked to Usama bin Laden. These actions have shattered terrorist cells and networks, disrupted terrorist plans, and—in some cases—prevented terrorist attacks from taking place.”
It is a speech that one gets the sense could be delivered any day or any year, that typical happy talk of government which pretends real progress, and even resolution of problems, when in fact there is no true progress towards eliminating terrorism or even diminishing the size of the terrorist armies that would wish us harm.