There is a rumour

going round

that proper cooperation

among the intelligence

services of the world

would have prevented 9/11.

If that were true,

isn't it also true that

proper cooperation

among the intelligence

services of the world

would have shut down the IRA,

the PLO, and the Kurdish

and Basque seperatists

three decades ago?

No, the purpose of intelligence

services, and the only reason

for cooperation between them,

as any ex-KGB agent will tell you,

is to perpetuate their own existences.

As such, failure often brings as much or more

money and business to their door

than success...

because if they were really doing their

jobs in the ideal manner...

we would never have heard of them.