A Scapegoat Steps Down

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair was forced to leave following accusations of conspiracy from CIA Director Panetta.

For the send-off, there was the usual consolation. Dennis Blair did his job as an intelligence director “admirably” and “effectively,” Barack Obama wrote on Thursday. In reality, it was the U.S. president who gave Blair the boot for his declared intentions, according to the beliefs of experts in the Washington power center.

The reason: serious inefficiency. Only 16 months ago, the retired Navy admiral had been appointed “director of national intelligence,” which meant coordinating the 16 intelligence agencies of the United States. As the top watchdog, he was supposed to ensure that rivalry and vanity did not hinder the exchange of sensitive information.

He was the third man to hold a post created by George W. Bush to show that a lesson was learned on September 11, 2001. Before the terrorist shock of 9/11, there had been some warnings here and there, but no one could put the pieces of the puzzle together to form an overall picture.

Now Blair has to step down because, at Christmas, something that recalled the fatal chain of errors of the summer of 2001 repeated itself. If passengers had not courageously intervened, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would probably have succeeded in blowing up a plane above Detroit. Warning signs were ignored or got lost, despite the report by the Nigerian’s worried father, who informed U.S. diplomats about the radicalization of his son. This series of errors continued in the case of Faisal Shahzad, a [naturalized] U.S. citizen originating from Pakistan, who wanted to set off a bomb in New York’s Times Square.

Blair is the scapegoat for such disgraces. The post he leaves arose from a faulty construction, according to the Washington Post: With this, an additional bureaucratic layer was added to an already overly-bureaucratic apparatus. According to insiders, the real reason behind his resignation was a power struggle in the inner circle of the shadow world. Allegedly, Blair wanted to decide which agents the CIA sends overseas, rather than CIA Director Leon Panetta. Panetta, former chief of staff under Bill Clinton and still well connected to the White House, is said to have protested strongly to Obama and to have played all his cards — ultimately, with success.