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Comments:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/10/condi-is-a-disg.html

Condi is a disgrace

It is emerging that we knew for months, months, that there was a NORK nuclear site in Syria. We stopped Israel from taking out this most dangerous of all weapons. We are pathetic. Bush has gone over to the darkside.

[Copy of story clipped]

Video
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/10/le-resistance-i.html

Texas Gal on October 7, 2007 at 12:33 AM

Thank you for the explanation – it helps a lot. I knew that the idea would not be practical for a short term process, I was just wondering if it was legally viable.

Thanks again.

Or not attack, and be right?

Being “mistaken” is sometimes more advantageous to our security.

But you have to be able to explain this concept seriously.

Which is Bush’s (and Rice’s) fatal poltical flaw.

They can’t talk their way through a wet tissue.

doriangrey on October 6, 2007 at 2:00 PM

Unfortunately, a president can’t just fire all the career bureaucrats. They are unionized federal workers. It would be a good idea to clean house as best as he can upon assuming office. That was one major mistake Dubya made in 2001… he left in place far too many Klintonistas that he could have fired on day one.

Herikutsu on October 6, 2007 at 6:46 PM

Technically it could be done but you have to consider the timeline that is necessary in creating a new agency. It’s really complicated and a long process. Just the creation of staff positions can take a year then you have the hiring process and if it’s top down that could take a couple of years.

I’m really impressed actually that the Homeland Security Dept came together as fast as it did when it required merging existing departments that I’m sure had to negotiate not only areas of duplication but authority and overlapping personnel.

Salaried positions are funded annually, so for the Feds it’s October to September. Once an employee passes their 1 year hire date they are no longer probationary and fall into a classification that requires documentation to fire them. Actually, one of the easiest ways to get rid of dead weight is to restructure a specific division/department and reclassify all the staff positions, but you can’t target specific employees (you get into to affirmative action and EEOC problems) you have to target specific job classifications, then you can use seniority in that classification. For example, you could target CIA analysis, but that would mean the first in will be the first to go and that doesn’t seem to me to be the solution. It seems to me that the entrenched with the seniority are the problem children.

So when someone makes the assumption that Condi or Gate (Rumsfeld) et al could just get rid of those that are the problem, it really isn’t that easy and not really something that is realistically accomplished in the short term without an influx of new mid level managers department wide who are dedicated to getting rid of the problems and have the tenacity to stick with it .. because I tell you the truth when I say it is almost impossible to do because the system will beat you down! And those mid level positions are not ‘work at will’ and very hard to get into place when you have an entrenched administration of an agency in control of the human relations departments.

Texas Gal on October 6, 2007 at 2:20 PM

I have often wondered about this problem, having known several civil servant deadwood types in my life. What happenes if Congress just decides to defund an angency? You eliminate the budget, lay everybody off, subsequently create some new replacement agency, and then only hire back the good workers. I’m not suggesting that anybody in Washington will actually do this, just wondering if it would work – legally.

Thanks

The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States….

Note that one of the Times of London reporters is Uzi Mahnaimi who Meryl Yourish has warned you before.

Update: Meryl Yourish e-mails to say that Uzi Mahnaimi, the author of the Times story about the supposed looming attack, has been known to post sensational reports in that vein in the past which haven’t panned out. Case in point.
Update: Via Meryl, here’s more on Mahnaimi from Joe’s Dartblog

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/06/16/three-state-strategy-israel-planning-attack-on-hamastan-peace-with-fatahstine/

http://www.dartblog.com/data/2007/01/006846.php

Another is that Bush did little if anything to remove the shadow government from the federal bureaucracy. Stupid.

At least Republicans know not to nominate Rice if she stands.

You’ve got every stinking politician, reporter, blog nut and whatever looking over our covert operations’ backs. You have so many “verify ten times before acting” geniuses waiting to jump on our government’s case. Then, you’re surprised, outraged and whatever over this?

MNDavenotPC

Verifying 10 times is one thing. This, however, is slightly different. State made the Israelis tip their hand, which is verifiable, and gave a window of opportunity to Syria.

Is there any positive spin at all to be put on the claim that U.S. intel didn’t know about the Syrian site?

That we now know for certain liberals inside the CIA have effectively neutered the agency.

What’s amazing is how our stupid politicians don’t take this stuff seriously. We simply won’t get it until American cities lie in radioactive smoldering ruins.
Mojave Mark on October 6, 2007 at 11:57 AM

I make this remark three or four times a day, and I usually feel like I spending my time as wisely as if I were trying to teach calculus to a toy poodle. I don’t know what it will take to make people get it. I do know it is useful to remind people that the United States is not omnipotent and that there are guarantees that our military will always be the best. We better be careful about who next achieve military dominance.

to clean house in the State Dept, the CIA, the Pentagon and other civil servant departments where the socialist/liberal/democrats are advancing their own agenda’s instead of that of the administration that employees them.

No doubt it sure does need to be done but as someone who has worked for a government agency I can tell you it is not an easy task because of the protections that any employee who does not “work at the will” has. That means the only way to clean house it to build disciplinary action cases that usually take a couple of years, build unsatisfactory work cases that can take longer or reassign people to other roles which takes the creation of new positions that have basically no impact on the mission of the department. This is the problem with all those agencies. My guess is for the most part those that are the problem children are minding the P’s & Q’s and know the system better that those who are the ‘work at the will’ appointees who want them gone too.

So as someone who has had to deal with these kinds of problem children for more years than I like to recall, I completely understand the challenge they are. It would take an army of new mid-level managers several years of diligence to clean the house.

Don’t mean to be harsh, but as Krydor pointed out Israel is getting shafted by the inept Dept of State and the appeasement crew for some time now, and here we don’t buck the requests from the US lightly, as per good allies.

saus on October 6, 2007 at 1:49 PM

I wish I could say that you are overstating the case with regards to the US State dept. But sadly I seriously doubt that you are. There are way to many terrorist coddling useful idiots in America for you guys to be getting much of anything else from our State Dept right now. Hopefully the next administration will be Fred Thompson who will have the Malkins to clean house in the State Dept, the CIA, the Pentagon and other civil servant departments where the socialist/liberal/democrats are advancing their own agenda’s instead of that of the administration that employees them.

Hogwash… I’m 100% with doriangrey’s thoughts on this.

DorienGray-
And if you’re right, Condi played them. Bet they beat their woman that night.
JiangxiDad on October 6, 2007 at 12:30 PM

I agree.

And I too don’t put much stock in the reporting of the MSM, especially when they promote exclusives with unnamed US officials. In this case, we don’t really know what confront means and we don’t know the timeline of such confrontation. I sure would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Assad was told his secret wasn’t a secret anymore. And since there really is not that much time between July and September it seems to me that perhaps Condi saw an opportunity to play the situation into a bigger prize, which btw we got by demonstrating several strategic advantages.

You guys leak like crazy because individuals take it upon themselves to ’shape the agenda’ which does not suit them, that’s hardly prize winning factors for earth shattering intel / analysis.

Don’t mean to be harsh, but as Krydor pointed out Israel is getting shafted by the inept Dept of State and the appeasement crew for some time now, and here we don’t buck the requests from the US lightly, as per good allies.