Something has to be done with the CIA

[Dari]

First the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Then poor intelligence on Iraq? WTF were these spies doing in the 1990s? If nothing is done, and fast, we could now be miscaculating something major that may take place anytime. I remember right after 9/11, everyone was discussing the various ways to streamline our overbloated, bureaucratic, and Bantustan-like intelligence community. One of these ideas was folding the CIA into another agency. Anyone know what happened after the fallout?

 

[Bowfinger]

They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

 

[Moonbeam]

Bush praised Tenet for a great job.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

 

[Genesys]

They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

the problem never would have happened if Clinton hadn't been voted into office...TWICE! Once was bad enough, but 8 years of military disarmerment and laxidasical handling of the CIA!

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What has to happen is that the intelligence community at large needs to be free from the pressure of the executive branch so it can gather and present its views without prejudice.

 

[Moonbeam]

Yup, charrison, the world was perfect till Bushsh!t happened.

 

[Witling]

Ah, Genesys, all sound, no ground. No sources of information Gen? Don't let that keep you from enlightening us.

My take on this is people expect too much out of intelligence and the military. Yes, they can do it in the movies, but real life is a little different. It's my belief that we had bright people working on this. I know that as time has progressed, I've been asked to do more with less on my job. I don't know about the intelligence community, but there was a woman on PBS the other day who said, all she had to do was interview 200 potential U.S. visitors a day -- and, they wouldn't cut her in on the intelligence picture. It seems a little too easy to say that the intelligence community were all stupid loafers. They have their limitations, even as we do.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

With or without cheney, the CIA has problems. World intelligence on Iraq was wrong as well, which mitigates cheney being the problem of the CIA

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Considering that whole Pearl Harbor thing was the basis for forming the CIA. Oh, the irony! Yup, I agree with Bow on this one: keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley. Although, I think the question Dari brought up was:

WTF were these spies doing in the 1990s?

Frankly, I'm more interested in WTF they were doing since 2000. That would be nearly two years prior to 9/11 and long before OIF...

 

[sandorski]

Spin away, the Buck stops at Bush.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Genesys
the problem never would have happened if Clinton hadn't been voted into office...TWICE! Once was bad enough, but 8 years of military disarmerment and laxidasical handling of the CIA!

Sure, I get you. That's because Clinton was the one who was manipulating and cherry-picking intelligence to present to Bush. He was just wearing Cheney and Rumsfeld masks to confuse the analysts. Diabolical! Damn that man is evil.

What else are you picking up from the voices in your head this evening. Any update on Elvis?

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

With or without cheney, the CIA has problems. World intelligence on Iraq was wrong as well, which mitigates cheney being the problem of the CIA

I agree the CIA has problems and acknowledge other countries' intel also concluded Iraq probably had WMDs still. Other than Great Britain, however, I am not aware of any country that presented its conclusions with such certainty or pseudo-specificity. IMO, that was largely the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

With or without cheney, the CIA has problems. World intelligence on Iraq was wrong as well, which mitigates cheney being the problem of the CIA

I agree the CIA has problems and acknowledge other countries' intel also concluded Iraq probably had WMDs still. Other than Great Britain, however, I am not aware of any country that presented its conclusions with such certainty or pseudo-specificity. IMO, that was largely the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Germany was fairly conviced that Iraq had smallpox and a nuke program. France thought that iraq still had weapons programs and stockpiles. THe UN still did not have an explaination for what happened to iraqs weapons stocks post gulf war 1.


But you can go and ignore these facts and blame it all on cheney.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

With or without cheney, the CIA has problems. World intelligence on Iraq was wrong as well, which mitigates cheney being the problem of the CIA

I agree the CIA has problems and acknowledge other countries' intel also concluded Iraq probably had WMDs still. Other than Great Britain, however, I am not aware of any country that presented its conclusions with such certainty or pseudo-specificity. IMO, that was largely the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Just like the US and GB, the politicians of other countries used their intel for political means. Hence, since everyone basically saw eye-to-eye about Iraq and WMDs, then the other countries wanted to protect their interests in Iraq while the US and GB were concerned about the marriage of outlawed regimes and terror cells.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
They can solve the problem nicely if they just keep Cheney and Rumsfeld away from Langley.

So you are saying no major mistakes were made by the CIA prior to this administration?

Not at all. We obviously had many points of failure at many levels. Would you be more satisfied if I substituted "mitigate" for "solve"?

With or without cheney, the CIA has problems. World intelligence on Iraq was wrong as well, which mitigates cheney being the problem of the CIA

I agree the CIA has problems and acknowledge other countries' intel also concluded Iraq probably had WMDs still. Other than Great Britain, however, I am not aware of any country that presented its conclusions with such certainty or pseudo-specificity. IMO, that was largely the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Germany was fairly conviced that Iraq had smallpox and a nuke program. France thought that iraq still had weapons programs and stockpiles. THe UN still did not have an explaination for what happened to iraqs weapons stocks post gulf war 1.


But you can go and ignore these facts and blame it all on cheney.

Some rules of intel.

Assume you are wrong, so check some more before you believe you are right.
Intel is not evidence. Intel is intel, not proof.
Intel that has been gathered by foreign powers is hearsay. It only becomes intel once it has been verified by your own agency.
There is no such thing as negative intelligence. You determine if a thing is. If you cannot, then you cannot say it is not. You are merely uncertain.

Also.

It is not enough to know that someone believed a thing, but when they believed it.

 

[DealMonkey]

Seems to me that the world's intel orgs simply didn't know what was going on in Iraq, relied too heavily on UNSCOM up until they were kicked out in '98, and afterwards gravitated towards worst-case scenarios about Iraq w/o having any actual hard data.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
I agree the CIA has problems and acknowledge other countries' intel also concluded Iraq probably had WMDs still. Other than Great Britain, however, I am not aware of any country that presented its conclusions with such certainty or pseudo-specificity. IMO, that was largely the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Germany was fairly conviced that Iraq had smallpox and a nuke program. France thought that iraq still had weapons programs and stockpiles. THe UN still did not have an explaination for what happened to iraqs weapons stocks post gulf war 1.


But you can go and ignore these facts and blame it all on cheney.

You are distorting my position. Please note that I said "largely" the result.

I suppose I could turn this around, "So you're saying Cheney and Rumsfeld did not in any way, shape, or form influence intelligence to even a small extent to support a worst-case view of Iraq?" That would be inaccurate and intentionally inflammatory, however, inhibiting productive discussion instead of supporting it, so I won't.

Re. the weapons, I believe Iraq said they destroyed them, a claim supported by some Iraqi defectors (and post-invasion interviews). We did not believe them. I think the obvious answer is that they did, in fact, destroy them, even if they weren't able to document this to our satisfaction.

 

[SuperTool]

I think blaming the CIA is just sleazy. Bush made up his mind and then looked for intelligence to support it. If he looked at all the intelligence and then made up his mind, then you could blame the bad intelligence.

 

[Witling]

Charrison, "world intelligence" on Iraq was not wrong. You will prerhaps remember that we flew in the face of world opinion by asserting the claim of "immenent danger?"

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Whitling
Charrison, "world intelligence" on Iraq was not wrong. You will prerhaps remember that we flew in the face of world opinion by asserting the claim of "immenent danger?"

Who is the "we" that you speak of.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
I think blaming the CIA is just sleazy. Bush made up his mind and then looked for intelligence to support it. If he looked at all the intelligence and then made up his mind, then you could blame the bad intelligence.

And 9/11?

 

[Witling]

Charrison "We" = U.S. + the Lap Dog. That's who flew in the face of world opinion on the advisability of attacking Iraq.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Whitling
Charrison "We" = U.S. + the Lap Dog. That's who flew in the face of world opinion on the advisability of attacking Iraq.

So you are denying that germany thought Iraq has smallpox and nuke program? You deny that UN was not convinced that IRaq got rid of weapons stocks? You deny that france thought that Iraq was continueing its weapons programs.