Report: U.S. intel on N. Korea in disarray

[sabra]

http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20061012-092311-7682r.htm

Report: U.S. intel on N. Korea in disarray

As many as 10 recent U.S. intelligence reports and estimates on North Korea's nuclear abilities were wrong, The Washington Times reported Thursday.

Bush administration officials who did not want to be identified told the newspaper the failures included some reports that cast doubts on whether Pyongyang's uranium enrichment posed an immediate threat and whether the country could actually produce a useful bomb.

Other recent reports said Pyongyang was bluffing a week and a half ago when it announced plans to conduct an underground nuclear test, the newspaper said. Monday, there was a large explosion in North Korea, but it remains unknown if it was atomic or conventional.

The sources said the intelligence community was also caught off guard when North Korea fired its July 4 salvo of seven missiles.

[LynnTheDem]

1. BECAUSE OF bUSH.

GEORGE W. bUSH is why our intell reports on NK are a shambles.

That is FACT.

Why and when did NK kick the IAEA, cameras and intell officers out of NK, GEORGE W. bUSH?

Who said "Why should I worry about North Korea!", GEORGE W. bUSH?

Worst president in the history of America...and then some.

[HereSince1628]

2. Well, the good news the * admin doesn't work from intelligence...

so this will in no way harm their foreign policy agenda. :eyes:

[al bupp]

3. You got that right! /nt

[MrPrax]

4. Intelligence or wishing thinking?

Since when has intelligence (correct or otherwise) ever interfered with an political decisions based on ideological intent. There are fifty years of intel showing that the Cuban blockade hasn't worked -- but that isn't the reason why Bush or any other President (REGARDLESS OF THE PARTY AFFLIATION) doesn't bother talking to Castro and for the same reasons here.

In the 90s, intelligence said that DPRK was simply a crude stalinist personality cult that would fall apart immediately when Kim -il Sung passed on...the country would fall into disarray and anarchy and the South Koreans with the help of the US would have to go in and liberate the country.

That was like 12 years ago?

Was that intel correct? Quite the opposite actually.

The son consolidated power quite quickly and apparently more thoroughly than Dear Old Dad. Then the gameplan changed after this failure, and sanctions and non-diplomatic pressures were employed to 'help' the collapse that the Intel community and it's advisors KNEW would surely happen this time.

It's didn't -- but it did immiserate the North Korean people which is what sanctions are suppose to do. Saddam ate well and so did his supporters, while the people (presumeably the ones we are trying to convince of our good intentions) end up starving and defenseless. Then we kill them while maintaining this polite fiction of a rational foreign policy that gives forewarning of our intentions without actually ever entering negotiations.

There isn't any intelligence failure involved in a longstanding political policy of 'not negotiating with the enemy' anymore than there was an intel failure regarding Iraq -- intel had it right (no threat, no weapons), but that didn't matter to decision-makers.

More self-deluded finger-pointing from one of history's imperial powers whose people can't believe that their Emperor's edicts might be defied or ignored.

[carzen]

5. geez, can our intel people get ANYTHING right?