Bin Laden killing shows off agency cooperation

WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community that was accused of failing to connect the dots before the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was lauded Monday for finding and finishing off its No. 1 target with pinpoint accuracy.

Navy SEALs, at sea aboard the USS Oscar Austin in a 2002 drill. A SEAL team completed the mission against Osama bin Laden.

By Michael W. Pendergrass, AP

Navy SEALs, at sea aboard the USS Oscar Austin in a 2002 drill. A SEAL team completed the mission against Osama bin Laden.

Though there were enough apparent heroes in the operation that led to Osama bin Laden's demise ? from two presidents to a team of daring Navy SEALs ? part of the credit went to an obscure law passed in 2004 and a decade's effort to coordinate the work of military and intelligence agencies that used to compete.

"I think this clearly demonstrates the new intelligence community after 9/11 and their ability to find and reach out anywhere in the world and take care of people who threaten the United States," said Rep Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

That's an about-face from some of the assessments given the nation's civilian and military intelligence capabilities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and, two years later, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that intelligence officials said were there.

Those failures were blamed both on a "need-to-know" culture within the nation's intelligence structure that prevented information-sharing and the absence of laws requiring cooperation. "That culture had to change," says Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission that recommended scores of changes in 2004.

After the panel's scathing report and passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Hamilton says, "it was forced ? it was required ? that they share information."

The law created the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center and set up a joint command structure across 16 agencies. It's been a work in progress since then, but "this is real evidence that, though imperfect, the law worked," says Jane Harman, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time and now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The intertwined relationship between the U.S. military and intelligence community may have been on display last week when President Obama nominated CIA Director Leon Panetta as his next Defense secretary and Afghanistan commander Gen. David Petraeus his next CIA director. But there's nothing like an actual joint operation to turn words into action.

So when Navy SEALs acted upon intelligence community leads to kill bin Laden and escape by helicopter with his body, it completed a turnaround from the post-9/11 days.

By Monday, intelligence officials were participating by telephone in the Pentagon's initial briefing on bin Laden's capture and killing, and members of Congress were singing their praises.

"From everything we can determine, every element of our government ? military, intelligence, homeland security ? worked together as a team," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I- Conn., who was the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee after the 9/11 attacks.

The operation even silenced criticism that it took too long to find the al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 plotter, who had nearly been captured in 2001 in the mountainous region of Afghanistan near Tora Bora.

"I think you've got to hand it to bin Laden," says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon assistant secretary in the Reagan administration. "Everybody assumed he was in a cave near the border. He was basically hiding in plain sight."

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

USATODAY.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.