Policy

Failure in Government Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

U.S. Capitol Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo: iStockPhoto)

In America’s sprawling intelligence network, costing tens of billions of dollars, who got fired after the 9-11 terror attacks for failing to connect the dots?

Who in the military got fired after the Fort Hood terrorist attack for failing to connect the dots?

More recently, who in the FBI or Department of Homeland Security got fired after the San Bernardino terrorist attack for failing to connect the dots?

And who in the government will get fired after the Orlando terrorist massacre for failing to connect the dots?

If you answered “nobody” in response to all these questions, don’t expect special congratulations. Failure in government is both pervasive and without consequences, so any other answer would have required a degree of near-malicious naiveté normally found at Bernie Sanders’ rallies.

And there are lots of dots that should have been connected in Orlando.

Jim Geraghty of National Review gatheredseveral examples.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

…on Sept. 11, 2001. As classmates looked on in shock, Mateen celebrated the terrorist attacks that day… At a barbecue in the spring of 2007, Mateen…told the class he ought to kill all of them…

The Daily Beast reports:

Mateen first came to the FBI’s attention in May 2013, after making a series of “boasts” to co-workers about his various ties to terrorist groups

The Miami Herald reports:

The Islamic Center was also attended on occasion by Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who is believed to be the first American suicide bomber in Syria.

And here’s what CNN has reported:

…he was a security guard at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, often manning the metal detectors at the front of the building.Sheriff Ken Mascara said that in 2013 his staff requested Mateen be transferred from the courthouse because he made inflammatory comments. Mateen’s supervisor notified federal agents, after which, the sheriff said, the FBI investigated the guard.

And here is some amazing evidence from a report by Fox2:

A Florida gun store owner says his employees refused to sell to the Orlando nightclub gunman before the attack. The Florida gun store owner noticed several red flags right away — and alerted the FBI. But, there was never an investigation, and Omar Mateen slipped through the cracks.

It may turn out, of course, that some of these reports are wrong. But most of them, if not all of them, are presumably accurate.

Yet the hordes of paper pushers in the federal government decided that this dirtbag didn’t belong on the no-fly list (though somehow the feds decided an eight-year old cub scout shouldn’t be on planes)?!?

And the bureaucrats didn’t think additional investigations of Mateen were warranted given all the above information, which they had before the attack?

I realize I’m venting because of my anger at the senseless slaughter. Yes, I admit that even an efficient government isn’t going to be able to stop all terrorism. And maybe our government quietly thwarts many attacks and actually does a lot better job than we realize.

But in this case and others, mistakes obviously were made. Shouldn’t there be any consequences for that incompetence?

By the way, other governments are equally feckless. If you recall the terrorist bombing of the Brussels Airport, the Belgian government demonstrated unbelievable and near-malignant levels of stupidity.

The Daily Caller has some of the disturbing details.

Turkey detained one of the Brussels suicide bombers, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, in June 2015 on charges of being a foreign fighter. …Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Belgium ignored Turkey’s “warning that this person is a foreign fighter.” …Erdogan said…“We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free.” …El-Bakraoui, 30, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2010 for a shootout with police officers. He was released early but subsequently violated his parole and was supposed to be back in prison.

Wow, this is like a perfect storm of government incompetence. First, the Belgian government is told the guy is a foreign fighter in Syria. Second, the Belgian government knew he was a bad guy. Third, they let him out of jail early. And fourth, he violated the conditions of his parole but wasn’t thrown back in jail.

But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this is the same nation where an official claimed that it was difficult to fight terrorism because of “the small size of the Belgian government” even though the public sector in that country consumes a greater share of economic output than it does even in Italy and Sweden.

So what’s the moral of the story?

There are three. First, the federal government has become such a sprawling and bloated mess that incompetence seems inevitable.

And it doesn’t matter whether it’s on purpose or by accident. We have a government that does a bad job, even when we want good performance.

Here’s what I wrote back in 2014.

There are some legitimate functions of government and I want those to be handled efficiently. But I worry that effective government is increasingly unlikely because politicians are so busy intervening in areas that should be left to families, civil society, and the private sector.

Mark Steyn made the same point in a much more amusing fashion.

But there’s a second point that needs to be made about the lack of consequences.

If nobody is ever fired for mistakes, it’s obviously much harder to get good performance. The success of any organization depends in part on the carrots and sticks that are employed.

But in the federal government, there are no sticks.

Heck, you can let veterans die by putting them on secret waiting listsand then get awarded bonuses.

From the perspective of bureaucrats, this is a win-win situation. If you do something bad, there are no consequences.

And if you allow something bad, there are no consequences.

For the third and final point, I’m going to partially absolve bureaucrats because some of the problem is the result of politicians misallocating law-enforcement resources.

Think of all the money, time, energy and manpower that is squandered for the War on Drugs. Wouldn’t it be better if the crowd in Washington shifted those resources to stopping people who want to kill us?

And what about the multi-billion cost of anti-money laundering laws. For all intents and purposes, the government is requiring banks to spy on everybody, which results in a haystack of information, thus making it impossible for law enforcement to find any needles. Call me crazy, I’d rather have law enforcement concentrate on actual criminals.

I’m not expecting perfection from Washington. Or even great performance. But it sure would be nice if the government was semi-effective.

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Daniel Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and a top expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy. Mitchell’s articles can be found in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, and the Washington Times. He is the author of "The Flat Tax: Freedom, Fairness, Jobs, and Growth," and co-author of "Global Tax Revolution: The Rise of Tax Competition and the Battle to Defend It."

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View Comments

Mazinger Z says:

June 22, 2016 at 4:03 AM

Hey how about Hillary, hilarious? Hey how about black ops stuff they will never tell you about, I bet there are lots and lots of screw ups there. And how about the garbage we are being fed, maybe it is intentional so that someone or some company or some industry can make money, anything to make a buck!