Breakdown: The Failure of American Intelligence to Defeat Global Terror [Mass Market Paperback]

Bill Gertz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2003

Bill Gertz, bestselling author and acclaimed defense and national security reporter, uses his unparalleled access to America's intelligence systems to examine how our nation's security is compromised by outdated bureaucracies and timid politics. Full of insider scoops and classified materials that tell the frightening truth about the FBI and the CIA. Breakdown is an incredibly gripping exposé unlike any other-unabashedly courageous, decidedly frank, and unafraid to lay blame where it is due.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the bestselling author of a scathing indictment of Clintonian foreign policy, Betrayal, comes an unbalanced but revealing expose on the mistakes, misdirections and blunders behind "the most damaging intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor." Gertz supports his argument that the intelligence community has "lost sight of its purpose and function" with interviews, news clips and almost 100 pages of government documents, some partially classified (a National Security Agency report reproduced within contains little but the date and the designation "TOP SECRET UMBRA"-the rest is "withheld at the request of U.S. intelligence officials"). He points a very stern finger at the FBI, the NSA and the CIA, "where preservation of the agency's budget takes precedence over its performance." In one confounding case, Gertz writes, veteran CIA field agent Robert Baer was investigated and nearly prosecuted by the FBI for planning an assassination of Saddam Hussein; when the CIA discovered their jig was up, they left Baer out to dry. But while the insights into a government overrun by bureaucracy can be fascinating (and infuriating), Gertz seldom assigns any blame toward either George H.W. or George W. Bush's policies in the Middle East. He saves his condemnation, instead, for the Clinton administration (again). This one-sided portrayal may leave the critical reader feeling as if only half the story is being told, as Gertz's strong conservative bent distorts what could have been an important and well-informed look at the terrorist disaster.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A compelling analysis of our nation's intelligence problems... -- Edwin Meese III, former attorney general of the United States

Chilling...[Gertz] stokes the public's demand for a more rigorous intelligence apparatus. -- The New York Times

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Rev Upd edition (May 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452284279
• ISBN-13: 978-0452284272
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,292,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 160 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let's get serious please..., August 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)

Does anyone really doubt that there wasn't a huge intelligence failure that led up to 9/11? All of these terrorist killers just materialized out of thin air? Political correctness, bureaucratic infighting and just miscellaneous stupidity couldn't have come into play as well? Our government was preoccupied with Clinton and Monica, the false War on Drugs, anything, anything, anything except those that bombed our embassies in Africa, blew up the USS Cole, killed our soldiers in the Saudi Arabian Khobar towers, etc. Lots of great wishful thinking (maybe the Taliban will hand Bin Laden over) too... It's a crying shame and let me tell you this dear readers, author/journalist Bill Gertz is a major patriotic American to tell the truth to us like this. You know, the people that failed us are still running the system! And as Coleen Rowley so bravely said, and I paraphrase, should we put the counterterrorism unit chief and his supervisor (the fools Maltbie and Frasca that messed up the Moussaoui matter) in charge now? Tenet stills runs the CIA. This is American accountability? What have we really learned since 9/11? Thank God for this book, I hope it causes a real storm and makes people upset, upset enough to demand change!

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars US Intelligence Isn't, August 30, 2002

By 

Rob Northrup "Entrepreneur" (Norcross, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)

A quick informative read.

Gertz makes a strong case against the Clinton administration for its "politicization" of the US intelligence apparatus (CIA, NSA, etc). He also describes the ridiculously naive and stupid PC-based regulations which we have implemented which hamstring our field intelligence-gathering abilities. We should have been able to at least have a fighting chance at preventing 9-11, but not with the dysfunctional intel community described here.

Gertz also provides a brief plan to correct these major problems. This book is worth the two-three hours you will invest in it.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful, August 29, 2002

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (Hardcover)

The author has done a wonderful job, without reference to any of the fifteen books on intelligence reform published between 1999 and 2000, in quickly reviewing the key elements of intelligence failure and in recommending some specific reforms that thus far have been denied by successive Administrations.

If this book forces policymakers to think, and makes it possible for the public to get very angry about the various failures of intelligence that contributed to 9-11, then it will be in the running for most patriotic and useful book of the year.

The author leaves one aspect of the 9-11 failure untouched--although he makes references to Democratic and to Republican policymakers, what he does not tell the American people is that intelligence failures do not occur without very substantive policy failures of two kinds: first, policy failures where the intelligence professionals are gutted, abused, intimidated, and generally prevented from being effective. The Director of Central Intelligence usually serves as the policy representative to intelligence in carrying out these abuses, rather than as the intelligence representative to policy. The second failure is one of "inconvenient warning," where solid professional intelligence estimates are set aside and ignored because the politicians don't want to be bothered, don't think it will cost them with their domestic constituencies, and are not truly committed to long-term national security. This is a bi-partisan problem--until the American people appreciate the connection between voting, policymaker character, and intelligence success, we will continue to get the government--and the intelligence community--that our citizens deserve.