Why U.S. Intelligence Failed

[Q]

Why U.S. Intelligence Failed
By Robert Parry
October 22, 2003

In Tom Clancy’s political thriller “Sum of All Fears,” the United States and Russia are being pushed to the brink of nuclear war by neo-Nazi terrorists who have detonated a nuclear explosion in Baltimore and want the Americans to blame the Russians.

CIA analysts have pieced together the real story but can’t get it to the president. “The president is basing his decisions on some really bad information,” analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) pleads to a U.S. general. “My orders are to get the right information to the people who make the decisions.”

Though a bit corny, Ryan’s dialogue captures the credo of professional intelligence analysts. Solid information, they believe, must be the foundation for sound decisions, especially when lives and the national security are at stake. The battle over that principle is the real back story to the recent dispute over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. It is a story of how the CIA’s vaunted analytical division has been corrupted – or “politicized” – by conservative ideologues over the past quarter century.

Some key officials in George W. Bush’s administration – from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to Vice President Dick Cheney – have long been part of this trend toward seeing intelligence as an ideological weapon, rather than a way to inform a full debate. Other figures in Bush’s circle of advisers, including his father, the former president and CIA director, have played perhaps even more central roles in this transformation.

For his part, the younger George Bush has shown little but disdain for any information that puts his policies or “gut” judgments in a negative light. In that sense, Bush’s thin skin toward contradiction can’t be separated from the White House campaign, beginning in July, to discredit retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly debunking the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. That retaliation included the exposure of Wilson’s wife as an undercover CIA officer, an act that is now under FBI investigation as a possible felony.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/102203.html

[GOPisEvil]

1. Ideology is placed above intelligence in this administration.

Jeez, just typing that sentence scared the shit out of me.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Reading it wasn't much better.

[RichM]

2. An exceptionally fine article. Was posted yesterday in Editorials Forum.

Everything Parry & his 2 sons write is well worth reading. They only publish 1 or 2 pieces a month. (They are so good, that I donate to their website, & feel grateful for the privilege of doing so.)

The main thing one gains from this piece is an appreciation of how long it's really been (25 years or so) since the analytics division of the CIA became seriously corrupted & politicized. Naturally, this process of corruption really got under way when Poppy Bush was director.

Think what this means. Here you have an agency funded by $30+ billion a year, paid for by you & I. The agency does 2 things: analysis, & "operations." The latter is the division handling assassinations, coups d'etat, etc. So we should all feel great about that, right? Then there's the analytics division. Everything they produce is complete bullshit, because if the intelligence isn't what the White House wants to hear, it's suppressed & distorted. The end product becomes a fairy tale used to justify what the WH gangsters wanted in the first place.

The point is - as awful as this is, it's been going on for A LONG TIME!!

Read it & weep. :cry: