Quote of the Day (Stella Rimington, on a Past British Intelligence Briefing)

“Well, prime minister, we know that the IRA is about to bring in a large lorry bomb. We don’t know when it’s coming in; we don’t know which port it’s coming in at; and we don’t know what the target is. But, prime minister, I thought you should know.”—Stella Rimington, former director general of the British intelligence agency MI5, on a briefing with John Major on a terrorist threat, quoted in Nick Glunt, “Rimington: U.K. Espionage Has Evolved as Times Changed,” Chautauquan Daily, July 14, 2011

The anecdote above produced many chuckles in the audience at Stella Rimington’s lecture yesterday morning at the Amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, but her point was deadly serious: the large gaps of information available to decision-makers around the world as they attempt to preserve the lives of their citizens.

People with a political axe to grind of whatever ideology might think that Presidents ought to know precisely when or where an attack will take place, but more often than not the precise time and place are going to be unknown.

In addition, there is the matter of how and when to charge a terrorist suspect. Governments in the West, particularly in the United States and Rimington’s U.K., need more than enough information to make an indictment stick. Without that, the suspect can go free. Attempts to lengthen suspects’ detention periods to provide further time for building cases run into civil-liberties challenges.

On the other hand, waiting until every “I” is dotted and every “t” crossed in an indictment can lead to massive loss of life.

John Major’s response to Rimington’s maddeningly imprecise briefing? A sigh, followed by “Stella, do your best.” Pretty admirable stoicism, if you ask me.

I’m not a fan of Britain’s former P.M., but this time I sympathized with his frustration, just as I do with his past and present counterparts, no matter what their party, in his country as well as in the U.S., as they deal with thousands of similar maddeningly imprecise reports of threats. It's enough to make you wonder why on earth they would ever want their jobs.