The saga continues:

“Michael Scheuer, the longtime CIA counterterrorism official who headed the agency’s Usama Bin Laden Unit from 1996 to 1999, sent a letter to the congressional intelligence oversight committees that discussed, among other things, how the unit has grown weaker in the three years since 9/11. Here is the relevant section of Scheuer’s letter:

“‘September 2004: In the CIA’s core, U.S.-based Bin Laden operations unit today there are fewer Directorate of Operations officers with substantive expertise on al-Qaeda than there were on 11 September 2001. There has been no systematic effort to groom al-Qaeda expertise among Directorate of Operations officers since 11 September. Today, the unit is greatly understaffed because of a “hiring freeze,” and the rotation of large numbers of officers in and out of the unit every 60-to-90 days–a process in which experienced officers do less substantive work and become trainers for officers who leave before they are qualified to support the mission. The excellent management team now running operations against Al Qaeda has made repeated, detailed, and on-paper pleas for more officers to work against the al-Qaeda–and have done so for years, not weeks or months–but have been ignored.’”

Please bring this up the next time some innocent soul announces they’re voting for Bush because of security concerns.