Learning more about the current enemy, Despotic Islam, would be closer to the point than carping about your friends’ minor slip-ups.

We may have hit clumsily, but we still connected, and turned a lot of jihadis to compost.

Put the energy toward Osama, not the BND.

If the President is going to pull the trigger on a war, then he has to do due diligence on the intel that precipitates it.

dogsoldier on March 23, 2008 at 7:30 AM

But in the end, a lack of information about an inimical power is one of the best reasons I can think of, for destroying it.

It’s obviously – and tragically, disastrously – been beyond the interest or ability of the administration to take the time to keep the discussion of intel and pre-emption on track, but the logic won’t go away, however sloppy or factually challenged post-hoc commentary may be. Iraq had vast financial resources, the proven capacity to conduct very impressive WMD development (VX), an extensive history of use of WMD, an unmatched history of recklessness in attacking/provoking/defying all including the US even when the direst consequences were threatened (see Pollack’s discussion of the pre-1991 Bush note to Saddam and how Iraq crossed every single red line without hesitation), had been neck-deep in terrorism for decades, had very alarming ties to AQ (see various including the US indictment relating to the Africa embassy bombings in ‘98, and the question of Iraqi CW assistance to AQ via Sudan), and “containment” of the conventional sort was irrelevant to the post-9/11 threat. Sanctions were crumbling (they had never been intended to last a year, much less 12 years).

In short, there’s a very good reason that almost all serious observers in the US backed the idea of taking out the Iraqi regime (see congressional votes on the use of force authorization to recall that such support was actually broader in ‘03 than support for the Kuwait war had been in ‘91). Those reasons were not affected in the slightest by the fact that STOCKS of WMD weren’t sitting around. Pre-emption is about, uh, PRE-emption. Iraq was by far the most dangerous regime in the world post-9/11, and the other two most dangerous ones (Iran and NoKo) ended up being included in that elite “axis of evil” group. Seems they were the other two regimes most involved in WMD and global terrorism (or in NoKo’s case, reckless behavior like huge state criminal enterprises). Gee -I guess there’s an underlying logic there, even if the administration refuses to explain or defend it. I’m not surprised the media and Beltway types are too dim to get it, but I am disappointed that so many otherwise sensible people have forgotten the underlying logic of pre-emption.

We know the President often reviews intel details at regular briefings. Mind you, I am not one of those that says the President lied. There is ample proof that WMD stockpiles, resources and equipment were in Iraq 3 months before we as a country rolled in and that it was exported from Iraq while our government farted around for those three months.

When the CIA presented this “evidence” to the CIC he should have asked them if they interviewed the source and verified his intel. That seems pretty basic. Call me, I dunno, thorough.

dogsoldier on March 22, 2008 at 12:05 PM

One should be able to rely on one’s help…as competent, which is why I never understood why Bush kept Tenet.

No official going into a briefing with the POTUS should ever state anything other than the best facts or intelligence, already vetted. If Tenet would have given Bush the Curveball information and said it had not yet been verified, it may have turned out differently. Tenet was the one pushing the “slam dunk”.

As it is, I still believe the US had better intelligence from other sources than just this one.

Our CIA is seems to always be on Spring break. Their failures are legendary. To think I was going to apply after college graduation – whew.

The rest of the “West German” government was worse, at least until the 80s: WIlly Brandt’s personal assistant / advisor was a Stasi plant–so whatever Brandt knew, the commies knew

NOBODY in the West trusted the BND; nobody………..

Unfortunately, it will take a future generation of historians, not even born yet, to come to this conclusion. The ones who will write the first histories of this time are all so infected by BDS that they won’t give blame to anyone but the evil Boosh.

Del Dolemonte on March 22, 2008 at 12:39 PM

True, and sadly there are many other liberal/lefty “truths” that will stagger on without real challenge for years to come. It’s ironic how our left wing media and pop culture consider themselves so fresh and cutting edge when in fact they are incredibly slow-witted and almost impervious to change, new ideas and constructive self-criticism. Their own brand of conventional wisdom is as sclerotic and resistant to change as any that’s ever existed.

Del Dolemonte on March 22, 2008 at 12:39 PM

The CDC should have issue a BDS Alert back in ‘03 as one of the most dangerous diseases in the history of mankind. It morphed normal human beings into monsters.

DAMN PENGUINS!

A few years ago Francis Fukuyama wrote in the WSJ that one of the things we learned about the Sep. 11 attacks and the Iraq War was how screwed up Western intelligence services are. We’re flying blind. Kay’s testimony reaffirms that. I haven’t been assured the CIA has finally gotten its act together let alone the agencies of U.S. allies. This uncertainty will result in massive skepticism from the public in the media the next time an Republican administration tries making the case for war.

seanhackbarth on March 22, 2008 at 12:41 PM

There, fixed it for ya.

Mew

TheBigOldDog on March 22, 2008 at 12:32 PM

That’s definitely a possibility. But at some point they had to see that the bad intel that they gave us was leading us into a war with Iraq. Why not make up another lie to stop it, or better yet, tell the truth? If the did have interest in keeping the sanctions going then you’d think that they had just as much interest in keeping Saddam from being removed from power.

Don’t subscribe to some vast conspiricy what can be explained by incompetence.

The CIA under Komrade Klinton deteriorated into another “State Dept”. Basically useless. George Tenet will be remembered as a failure, more so than Adm. Stansfield Turner under that other idiot, Jimmy Carter.

Zorro on March 22, 2008 at 12:14 PM

Unfortunately, it will take a future generation of historians, not even born yet, to come to this conclusion. The ones who will write the first histories of this time are all so infected by BDS that they won’t give blame to anyone but the evil Boosh.