Washington's War Situation Rooms are abuzz these days with a score of major flashpoints scattered across the globe, from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Central Asia and North Korea to Cuba, and has now an issued alert of China's readiness to launch a cyber attack targeting key government computer systems. . . .
Washington's War Situation Rooms are abuzz these days with a score of major flashpoints scattered across the globe, from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Central Asia and North Korea to Cuba, and has now an issued alert of China's readiness to launch a cyber attack targeting key government computer systems.

Alarm bells have not stopped ringing at the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Langley, Virginia, headquarters. The agency has been under an increasing media assault since September 11 for its recognized intelligence failures. It is even more distressing for the multibillion-dollar-funded agency since it is now certain that the White House had been warned as early as last August that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda agents were seeking to hijack aircraft.

With morale sagging, the ubiquitous and vast CIA appears to be operating on one overloaded circuit-breaker with its patriotic director George Tenet prominently in the crosshairs of terrorists and the US Congress. Incongruous as it seems, another intelligence report or early warning of an attack on the US is not being taken seriously. The insightful findings that China is gearing up for a cyber attack on defense and civilian computer networks in the United States and Taiwan is being dismissed outright as not potentially injurious to any computer networks.

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