Ex-Navy Secreatary brings skepticism to 9/11 panel.

[Dimsdale]

This piece on John Lehman was printed as a front page item today. Have I missed something? Lehman job in all this will be to join in to limit how far up the panel will go to assign blame for 9/11. CIA, FBI, fair game. BushCo. NFW.

Note the "heads on pikes" term below. This is making the rounds just as "pay to play" did during the Cal. recall.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/7546164.htm


snip

A member of one of Philadelphia's oldest families and an acolyte of former President Ronald Reagan, Lehman was named Navy secretary in 1981 at 38, one of the youngest in U.S. history. Like Reagan, Lehman believed the American military had become too passive. He wanted to shake things up and was skeptical of government bureaucracies, particularly intelligence-gathering agencies.

Time after time, Lehman said, he had seen the CIA get it wrong, misreading tactics of the Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong and failing to grasp the scope of the Soviet naval buildup. By the time Lehman left the Navy in 1987, he had presided over a huge buildup of U.S. naval forces and put in place a leadership team that endorsed Reagan's aim of pressuring the Soviet Union militarily.

snip

"Certainly in the largest intelligence failure and greatest attack on civilians in this country's history, there were things that went wrong. There needs to be an accounting of what went wrong," he said.


Yet Lehman adds quickly that he is not interested in putting heads on pikes.

[Smokie]

1. Head on a Pike?

The idea is that no one is gonna pay? Is that what their "Plan" is?

When you begin to ponder just how far this has gone, with all the stops the Whitehouse could throw in the way -- one by one being run over, you'd think they have something better than "head on a pike."

They are sweating bullets. Let's keep the heat turned up. Let's demand at least one head on a pike. Just one little ol head. Just one Colonel or Commander, or section head. Just give us one on a pike, we'll take the rest on a platter.

Somone needs to pay for this intelligence failure, and pay now. We need the first... the rest will be sure to follow.