Regarding the article “How 12/25 was like 9/11” by Thomas Kean and John Farmer Jr. (Views, Jan. 7): Why was the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day “not a failure to collect intelligence” but “a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence we already had,” as President Obama said?
According to Mr. Kean and Mr. Farmer the same question is relevant to the 9/11 attack. The underlying problems are rooted in the organization of the bureaucracies involved. The United States is a country known for innovation, no-nonsense pragmatism and goal-oriented rationality but it also seems capable of building bureaucracies with choking limitations to creativity, independent problem-solving and critical thinking.
Such hierarchies are based on the idea that leaders have absolute knowledge and authority, and subordinates have loyalty and conformity as their greatest assets. This creates an environment in which subordinates have to watch their tongues. This probably does not help “integration and understanding” of available data.
No comments:
Post a Comment