Why So Glum at the CIA?

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 1/19/05 | Alan Nathan

[kattracks]

The CIA's National Intelligence Council has the ability to chronicle facts, but it analyzes them with the all acuity of a banana split.  Iraq, reports the NIC, has replaced Afghanistan as the new haven for al-Qaida terrorists.  The council further asserts that US opposition to these terrorists has actually helped them by making Iraq not only a training ground for terror, but also a tool for recruitment and "technical skill enhancement" that will eventually culminate into a disbursement mechanism whereby its survivors can then return to their respective homelands to spread newly cultivated killing skills.  Basically, the NIC believes we've created more terrorists by fighting terrorists.  Are we to believe that if left unchallenged, terrorists would surrender under the relentless blows of our acquiescence?

It is entirely sensible for our intelligent community to assess worst-case scenarios.  But these projections must take into account the formidable realities that confront our enemies.  Unless analysts factor in our continued anti-terror efforts -- and American "technical skill enhancement" -- they render a projection that grossly exaggerates our difficulties.

A pivotal example of our own technical advancement is the Passive Millimeter Wave Technology, which allows U.S. troops to detect suicide bombers from 15 to 150 feet away even when these individuals hide among of civilians.  This portable technology has passed the prototype stage to receive additional funding from Congress.  Once implemented, the new tool could weaken what has been a terrorist strength: suicide bombing.

But the future of this technology plays no role in NIC projections, which stress the terrorists' evolution to the exclusion of America's.  Such an incomplete picture narrows our view of America's security -- instead of broadening it.

Alan Nathan is the nationally syndicated daily talk host of "Battle Line with Alan Nathan" on the Radio America Network.

[kattracks]

Seems Porter Goss has more housecleaning to attend to.

[MEG33]

Indeed.

[LibertarianInExile]

The CIA should be at least a LITTLE pessimistic. I'm not sure what this has to do with Porter Goss. This guy seems to want CIA to factor in happyland rainbow gumdrop guesswork and come up with superlicious estimates! That will just bite us in the ass later. Estimating extra income and higher stock prices was one of Enron's problems, wasn't it?

[kattracks]

The CIA should be at least a LITTLE pessimistic.

Sure thing. Tempering their pessimism with some optimism would be a nice change though.

[maestro]

......Bump!

................'vested-interest!'

[ProudVet77]

Have to ask, do we actually know what the CIA thinks? We have from an occasional "agent" (often the donut delivery guy) and also from demos. Not a great source.

[MEG33]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/925wciab.asp
The CIA Fights Back
The Agency fights back as Porter Goss and the Bush administration push for institutional reform.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/15/2004 11:00:00 AM
I found this...

[ProudVet77]

An interesting article. While I agree with most of it, it still can't say what the CIA thinks. It's like trying to discuss USN submarine operations or the skunk works at Lockheed. Those that talk don't know, and those that know don't talk.
It's early so if I missed your point, please indulge me.

[MEG33]

It's all I could find about the CIA..I did not have a point except to show some are not happy campers.Remember "Anonymous" the book?..Remember Wilson and the Niger story he leaked..his wife was CIA.

[MEG33]

It's all I could find about the CIA..I did not have a point except to show some are not happy campers.Remember "Anonymous" the book?..Remember Wilson and the Niger story he leaked..his wife was CIA.
The group who did this report is advisory. I have no idea what the CIA thinks about it.

[MEG33]

http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_home.html
Here's the NIC site

[ProudVet77]

It's a big organization, so I'm sure there are unhappy campers. That's true in any organization. I can't imagine a good CIA officer talking about what goes on inside the CIA, even if he got fired. Anyone who does, should have been fired.

[ex-Texan]

Perhaps they are concerned about widely circulated rumors that al Qaeda has acquired suicase nukes? This Blogger picked up the rumor in March, 2004. There are more than 8,500 news reports posted on the Internet about al Qaeda having purchased suitcase nukes. Googled Here.

Perhaps the CIA top brass are deeply concerned about twenty or more suitcase nukes floating around out there. And the PM of Canada gave a major speech last year in which he said that Saddam's WMD were smuggled out of Iraq to Syria and as far away as Denmark. The PM of Canada is a liberal! Why does the U.S. remain silent about Saddam's secret stockpiles of WMD? Why are they playing the game this way, just accepting MSM disinformation as gospel?

I dunno. Do yo?

[kattracks]

No, and I don't know that these 'reports" and rumors are true either, do you?

[Rockingham]

Four points:

(1) The media extracted one small passage from the NIC report and spun it into a CIA criticism of the Iraq war. That is a gross distortion, like interpreting a warning of icy roads as a prediction that one is a reckless driver likely to crash on the way to work.

(2) The CIA is so badly infested with liberals, group-think, and bureaucratic gamesmanship that its core analytical abilities were long ago compromised. Consequently, much of the information and advice that the CIA provides is so unreliable, carefully hedged, or misconceived as to be a disservice to the country.

(3) Worst of all, the CIA -- or at least many of its senior officers -- now seem to think that its role is no longer the traditional one of supporting the President with timely and reliable information and action, but to force or stay his hand as the CIA judges best. For the sake of scoring points against Bush, the media and the Left now support the CIA as a rogue agency unaccountable to their elected boss.

(4) On day, an historian may ponder whether we might have prevented 9/11 but for George Tennet's canny suck-up to Bush's father. When W was elected, he intended to name Porter Goss to head the CIA and shake the place up, but that intention was diverted by Tennet's lobbying. Supposedly, the decision to keep Tennet swung in his favor when Bush's father spoke up on Tennet's behalf. When you hear the CIA headquarters referred to as the "George H. W. Bush Center for Intelligence," consider how that bit of flattery by Tennet helped to keep him in place and protected the CIA's deadly institutional incompetence.

[Ranger]

The NIC is saying it is how we chose to fight terrorism, not if we should chose to fight it that has exasperated the problem. A subtle and important difference.

[marty60]

It's not about pessimistic or optimistic. it's about being REALISTIC. Which the CIA hasn't been in decades.

[kattracks]

They are basically criticizing the war in Iraq.

Odd how silent the CIA was all during the clinton years, and how they have suddenly found a voice.

[Shery]

Typical sour grapes! They could've done it better, of course, but then we'd be helping the wrong side!