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[igotthisguitar]

'Dead Wrong:' Inside an Intelligence Meltdown



President Bush's case for pre-emptive war against Iraq was based substantially on evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. But a presidential commission described the pre-war intelligence as "dead wrong." CNN Presents pieces together the chain of events that led to the faulty intelligence.

WATCH: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell makes the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations.

WATCH: While the mission in Iraq is declared a success no WMDs have been found.

http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/index.dead.wrong.html

[Summer Wine]

Hindsight 101 for us non involved in the intelligence Services. (Before you flame, I didn't want them in then for the reasons that are now argued publicly and I understood then they would go in for the reasons they now argue publicly, so I just sit around feeling bad, that I never said it publicly so I could bask in the I told you so atmosphere of today)

[joe_doufu]

[canuckistan]

The right-wingers are saying Cindy Sheehan is using the tragedy of her son's death to push her agenda.

Bush used the tragedy of 9/11 to push his agenda--the invasion of Iraq.

Same same. But when anyone brings that up, they're labeled unpatriotic Liberal Freaks.

The Repubs need to back off the smear-campaign rhetoric and face the critique of this admin more intelligently.

[Bulsajo]

[Gopher]

A Quick List of Some of the Most Salient U.S. Intel Failures and Successes...

Pearl Harbor (but OSS was only a few months old)

the counteroffensive at the Ardennes (no warning; overreliance on one intel source)

the so-called Alpine Redoubt (never existed; reports based on rumors only)

the Korean War (no warning)

Arbenz in Guatemala (claimed a connection between Guatemalan Workers' Party and Moscow, there was never any connection, only circumstantial evidence)

Cuban Missile Crisis (intel success; advance warning provided)

Arab-Israeli 6-Day War 1967 (intel success; advance warning and called it as a six or seven day event with an Israeli victory)

Sihanoukville estimate and other failures to clarify the O/B situation in Vietnam War

failure to penetrate North Vietnamese govt or Communist Party in the Vietnam War

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (successful prediction)

the so-called Soviet Brigade in Cuba in 1980-1981

failure to predict the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union

failure to predict the coup that nearly ousted Gorbachev in '91

9/11

WMDs in Iraq




There must be more, but this is all I can recall off the top of my head. The point: "intel failure" is not a new phenomenon.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Here is how Iraq could be related to the war on terror, and 9-11.

1) Iraq is/ could be a strategic prize in the war on terror. It borders on Iran , Saudi Arabia and Syria.

2) Mideast regimes are police states like North Korea.
The intellegence services of mideast regimes are able to crush Al Qaida within their own countires. They can stop the teaching of hate and the incitement to violence in their countries. They pay the clerics , know what the elties do , and they control the media.

3) After 9-11 The US needed to make an example of someone in the mideast.

4) One of the main causes of terror if not the main cause is mideast regimes and elites teaching hate.

5) The mideast was politcally disfunctional was so bad so it could not be worse. It is quite possible that if rational governments come to power there there will be less hate and less incitement to violence. Iraq could be an example of for others.


6) Saddam was a mass murdering thug who was difficult to contain and he never gave up his war to conquer the Persian gulf and the mideast.


8 ) Iraq is better off cause the US even at its worst is better than the rule of Saddam Hussein who was a threat to more than just Iraqis, and his sons were coming up next .


Futhermore if the US didn't take down Saddam Hussein then the US would have to maintain now fly zones and contain Saddam Hussein for the next 50 years. If any one cares to remember Al Qaida started up their war with the US because of US forces in Saudi Arabia.

[Gopher]

[Bulsajo]

Perhaps. But it sort of looks like Al Queda is Muhammed Ali here, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. The US is the punchdrunk boxer taking a swing at whatever he can catch. Al Queda has been dispersed (and therefore harder to locate and once located pin down and engage) but not necessarily weakened, as Madrid and London have shown. Taleban has gone back to being what they were in the early 90s, a rural grassroots guerrilla movement.

And it appears (and is substantiated by Bob Woodward, Steven Cole, Richard Clarke, and *anonymous*) that Al Queda had a pretty good idea of what would happen after 9-11 and planned accordingly, whereas the Bush Administrationmore or less abandoned plans and planning and trad military wisdom in order to lash out. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz pushed around Franks until he gave them the answers they wanted (i.e. Iraq was very doable in record time with a much smaller number of troops than trad military wisdom dictated).

[Paji eh Wong]

[Summer Wine]

Buljuso wrote:

Taleban has gone back to being what they were in the early 90s, a rural grassroots guerrilla movement.

I remember watching on TV when they first entered back in the 90's and people were cheering them on for removing the violence in Afghanistan politics. The tank drivers were off duty Pakistan Officers, they were supported by Pakistans Intelligence and Military. It was never a grassroots guerrilla movement, and probably still isn't even now. You don't switch allegiences over night, regardless of what Newspapers say. They probably do get a lot of underground support even now.[/quote]

[joe_doufu]

[igotthisguitar]

[Gopher]

I just saw the CNN special this thread references.

CNN presented evidence and told a story of how George Tenet more or less traded access and influence with the Administration for objectivity -- Tenet was in on Bush's war councils, for example. (People like their jobs in bureaucratic Washington, they like it when the President talks to them, hence there is a tendency to get on the bandwagon, and this is apparently what Tenet did with respect to the weapons of mass destruction charge.)

It also seems clear that Bush's entire case, represented by CIA's estimates on the question, rested on a single source, codenamed "Curveball." Curveball was deemed unreliable by the Defense Intelligence Agency, indeed they concluded he was a fabricator. Someone in the intel community determined that policymakers didn't care whether Curveball was on the level or not, and they felt it wasn't crucial to tell Powel this before he spoke at the UN.

The issue of how policymakers make use of intel also comes up. What can CIA or State's INR do if the White House doesn't want to hear their analysis because it's not convenient for their predetermined policies? This has happened in the past: CIA tried to tell Johnson that the war was not going well in Vietnam, but he didn't want to hear this; CIA told Nixon that the Allende regime in Chile was no threat to the U.S., but Nixon didn't care; and now there's this Iraq issue.

This presents a series of complex issues, hard to solve. It's like the Wesley Snipe's film Murder at 1600: "Washington is drowning in a sea of its own bullshit and doesn't even know it."

[Bulsajo]