OfficialWire: Former Congressman Says Obama Should Fire Key Intelligence Official

OfficialWire: Former Congressman Says Obama Should Fire Key Intelligence Official: "Former Congressman Joe DioGuardi, president and chairman of Truth In Government, is calling for “accountability and action” after the Christmas Day failed bombing attempt on Flight 253. DioGuardi strongly urged President Obama to take swifter action to fire top officials such as Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano, CIA Director Leon Panetta, or others at the top of the intelligence chain of command. “This is an egregious failure that must be addressed now,” DioGuardi said.

In a series of video clips, DioGuardi employs a risk-management perspective to national security issues, specifically the need to identify and fix government deficiencies related to terrorist attempts since Sept. 11. “What we have is a criminal enterprise—al-Qaeda and all of its affiliates,” he said. “This should not be a global war. This is a policing operation and that means good intelligence. We have to be much better at this. We cannot afford to fail once. They can afford to fail many times.”

The first practicing Certified Public Accountant ever elected to Congress, DioGuardi takes a practical, results-driven view of managing counterterrorism. “We just lost seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan—that is a huge amount of intelligence assets to be lost at one time,” DioGuardi said, referring to last week’s suicide bombing by an informant cleared to enter an American base in Afghanistan.

“It’s conceivable that today we would have forward-looking people like Winston Churchill before World War II, who can take initiative to gather, understand, and deploy appropriate intelligence. But, obviously, that’s not happening and we’re spending too much money not to have the best,” he said. DioGuardi also questioned why the Obama administration had not already implemented full-body scanners in most airports, as previously suggested in the 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004."