Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security-and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

That question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the Nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said-and your newspapers have constantly said-that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America-unions and businessmen and public officials at every level--will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to this same exacting test.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

Osama's strategic plan would have been as follows(IMHO)

1) Big attack on the US - demand removal of US troops from the Holy Land of Mecca
US responds just as we did in half a dozen other places, removing our troops from Saudi Arabia or alternatively, attacking Saudi Arabia and tramping our infidel boots thru Mecca, which would enrage the entire Muslim world, either way, it would have been a win for BinLaden
2) Infiltrate fighters and munitions into Saudi Arabia thru Iraq. Good 'ole Saddam had plenty of munitions and no love for the Saudi's since they didn't let him keep Kuwait.
3) Take control of Saudi Arabia - the US would be unable to rescue it, as most of the 9/11 Bombers were Saudi's.

Bottom Line, the "Stans" are tactical objectives for BinLaden. In order to have a Caliphate, one needs Mecca. In order to get to Mecca, one needs at least free passage thru Iraq.

The ultimate tragedy of the Iraq war was not only that it diverted the U.S. from the knockout blow against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan—the deaths of bin Laden and Zawahiri would likely have persuaded most jihadis it was wiser to focus on the near enemy—but that Iraq also altered the outcome of Al Qaeda's internal debate, tipping it in bin Laden's favor. "Iraq ended that debate because it fused the near and the far enemy," as Arquilla puts it succinctly. America ventured into the lands of jihad and willingly offered itself as a target in place of the local regimes. And as a new cause that revived the flagging Al Qaeda movement. It is, no doubt, bin Laden's greatest victory.

I am really curious about the credentials of these foreign policy and security “experts” who come out of the woodwork with fortuitous 20/20 hindsight assessments that, incidentally, back up what seem like absurd assessments when they sat in positions of influence.

Zarqawi was a strawman, Al Qaeda wasn’t really a threat, we created international terrorism, Al Qaeda was a bunch of bumbling, failing would be Jihadi James Bonds, with no appreciable following or organization. We made them into the threat they became.

Except, of course, that these failing bumblers managed to orchestrate a massive, coordinated terrorist strike over several years, including getting operatives into the US, through flight schools, and coordinated horrific attacks against the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and a probable target of either the White House or Congress. (Only this last effort unsuccessful, save the destruction of Flight 93 and every soul on board.

Western Intelligence misread or misidentified the exact roles and importance of individuals operating in a clandestine, tightly controlled, and impenetrable terrorist organization. This underscores the great difficulties of gaining intelligence against such a non-state adversary, rather than diminishes the threat posed by the organization.

Hirsh seems to fall victim to that most common of analytic blunders, assuming that what small proportion of information available should somehow be construed as representative of the (missing) whole.

A quick example. On a battlefield, intelligence sensors might pick up evidence of scattered reconnaissance elements across an area wide enough to suggest the presence of a Division sized enemy. An analyst can take limited intercepts and indicators, compare it against a template of what such an organization would look like, extrapolate the missing information, and posit the Division.

If he mistakes unit boundaries, he may be lumping disparate elements into a whole, and he instead has several Divisions in front of him, rather than one. In the same manner, if a mistake has been made on type of units in evidence, he could be seeing elements of a Regiment, Brigade or even a Battalion.

Intelligence Analysis is as much art as science, and much like the reporters who try to glean the “real story” out of isolated data points, the analyst can exaggerate what data he has or overextend patterns of analysis into the area of the unknown (the “gaps”) in ways contrary to what is really the case.

Could the West have exaggerated the threat? Possibly. But more likely, armchair critics with an agenda, with 20/20 hindsight, can always point at what didn’t happen, and say, “it wouldn’t have.”

An alternative explanation is, that aggressive analysis and interdiction prevented it, as one might argue, we have done in preventing another Al Qaeda attack on US soil.

Arrests and reports of broken plots would seem to suggest such efforts were underway. Rather than point to the absence of attacks as proof that the threat was exaggerated, it is rather more likely that the demonstrable examples of broken plots and failed attempts reflect success against an enemy that was all too capable, were we to go back to ignoring the threat.

(Cross-posted at Dadmanly)