Pearl Harbor, the Underpants Bomber and intel.

[AztecWilliam]

This topic has political implications but is more general in nature. (Maybe we need a separate forum for such things.) Anyway, there is much discussion these days about why the U-Pants doofus was not spotted before he boarded the plane. Should he have been? Well, very possibly he should have been, but the problem is more complex than it may at first appear.

Here is some perspective on intelligence analysis and why it is, before the fact, very tough to figure out what is about to happen. . . even when there are lots of relevant data coming in.

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/us/14iht-letter.html?pagewanted=1

AzWm