Amy Zegart: New 9/11 Shill

From "Talking Points Memo":

Why Another 9/11 Book?

By Amy Zegart | bio

My mother recently asked, “Honey, what exactly makes your book different than any other 9/11 book?” Nothing like a zinger from your own mother to get you thinking.

So here are my five most important findings.

Finding #1: Organizations, not individuals, were the root cause of failure
Most 9/11 books have focused on the personal drama of failure. It’s all about individuals, whose hair was one fire, who was sitting “at the center of the storm,” and the political battles they won and lost. But I’ve come to believe this emphasis is misplaced. And it’s dangerous because it suggests that a few pink slips can fix what’s broken in U.S. intelligence.

The real problem is worse. It’s called bureaucracy. Why were 19 terrorists able to kill 3,000 Americans? Because U.S. intelligence agencies never adapted to the end of the Cold War and the rise of a new enemy. In particular, the CIA and FBI were — and still are— hobbled by organizational structures, cultures, and professional incentive systems that didn’t give them a fighting chance against al Qaeda.

(snip)

Finding #5: Conspiracy theories are alive, well, and baseless
9/11 conspiracy theory books sell. A lot. And I get conspiracy theory questions nearly every time I lecture about my book. So for the record: I found not a shred of evidence supporting any kind of Bush administration conspiracy. Apparently, however, that may make me part of the cover-up cabal.

Grreeeaat, 9/11 was no one's fault-- it was just stupid bureaucracy! And there was NO conspiracy! She's found NO EVIDENCE of a conspiracy!


However, let's take a look at this Zegart a little more:

Amy Zegart is an Associate Professor at UCLA's School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses in U.S. foreign policy and public management. In 2003 she was awarded Public Policy Professor of the Year for excellence in teaching.

(snip)

Her research focuses on the design problems of U.S. national security agencies. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where she studied under Condoleezza Rice. Her first book, Flawed By Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS and NSC (Stanford University Press, 1999), won the highest national dissertation award in Political Science and has become standard reading for several U.S. military and intelligence training programs. More recently, she has written about adaptation failures in the CIA and FBI, the role of presidential commissions, organizational problems in nonproliferation policy, and port security. She is currently finishing a book (with Princeton University Press) about why U.S. intelligence agencies adapted poorly to the rise of terrorism after the Cold War.

Before pursuing an academic career, Zegart spent three years at McKinsey & Company, where she advised senior management in Fortune 100 companies about strategy and organizational effectiveness.

Zegart has served as a national security analyst for CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio. A former Fulbright Scholar, she received a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lives in Pacific Palisades, California with her husband and three children.

(Emphases added.)

Let's see-- she was a student of Condoleezza Rice-- Miss "No one ever imagined someone would take an airplane and use it as a missile".

Can you say "conflict of interest"?

She wasn't joking when she said she was part of the cabal!!!