<Mr. Shelby said the failures started in 1993 after the bombing of the World Trade Center. "That should have been, in my judgment, a wake-up call that terrorists would hit us on our own soil with devastating effect," he said.

He runs through other cases: the attack on the United States barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the explosions at the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the American destroyer Cole in 2000.

...But the senator does not try to hide his dismay that the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton administration, has not resigned or been replaced. "I've said all along that that was the president's decision, you know," he demurred, "and I'm not the president."

But pressed, he says he thinks that "you could get somebody stronger," and adds, "I believe that you, that we need a strong, strong director of central intelligence that will assert himself and will have the power and the backing of the president to be the chief of staff, I mean, the C.E.O. of the whole intelligence community."



Now who dropped the ball? There's a lot of blame to go around here.