Posted on 11/20/2005 2:39:47 PM PST by YaYa123
.... GERECHT: We actually know from inspectors that, in fact, there were large quantities of WMD that Saddam Hussein had, in fact, built. Now, what happened was that there appears to have been some change in the tactic and approach by Saddam Hussein during the 1990s.
I suggest to you, the only way you really would have been able to detect that would have been multiple sources, multiple volunteers inside of those organizations that could have verified it, and that would have been very, very difficult, and the agency didn't have that type of penetration before.
BLITZER: Melissa, you worked at what they call human intelligence. You were running these kinds of operatives throughout the Middle East. What's your take? How could it have been so bad? So wrong?
MAHLE: I agree very much with the assessment it was a lack of human reporting sources that were well-placed inside the Iraqi government. Because we had insufficient human intelligence, we could not challenge and did not challenge our assumptions.
We worked off the wrong baseline and, therefore, came to the wrong conclusions. And the reason why that happened was, in the 1990s, we got out of the spy business. We stopped recruiting intelligence agents on the ground because it was just too hard. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at transcripts.cnn.com ...
Blitzer's interview with 2 former CIA operatives was the best interview....and more important...than any I've seen in a long time.
To read the complete interview with the 2 CIA people, scroll down past Blitz' interview with Colin Powell's former deputy, Col Wilkerson, although that's pretty interesting too.
I think what struck me so unusual today, a CNN show actually had on two people representing two diffferent sides of the issue. I'm talking "fair and balanced", and I've got to say it blew me away to be watching "fair and balanced on CNN!.
This is one of those, are you sure it's CNN!
And because idiots in the Clinton administration didn't see the value of it. A legacy of shame and grief is what we got from that sorry presidency.
So, in other words, the Torricelli amendment is to blame for the bad intelligence. Works for me.
And this just blew me away, whewn Blitzer read the following:
"BLITZER: One of the CIA's former top analysts on Al Qaida and Osama bin Laden, Michael Scheuer, who we had hoped would be on this program today, unfortunately he's not here, wrote this in The Washington Times on Thursday.
He wrote this: "President Bush is wrong when he says we will not run from Iraq. He is whistling past the graveyard, hoping something good turns up. Sadly, nothing will. Why? Well, we will be beaten in Iraq and elsewhere because we refuse to accept reality and act with the brains or military ruthlessness reality requires."
BLITZER: And I didn't mean to suggest you're a Democrat or a Republican. I don't know what you are.This is great stuff. He side steps the question about his comments about on prewar planning, to be "precise" he diverts to post war planning. Even better, he knows he can't get away with his prewar comments because earlier in the interview Rumsfeld and another says they've never met the Wilkerson.
Politically I know you're a retired senior military officer in the U.S. Army. You worked for Colin Powell at the State Department as his chief of staff. And you wrote this recently in the Los Angeles Times: "The decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy."
This cabal being, in your words, "the vice president, Dick Cheney, the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, basically got what they wanted in getting the United States to war against Saddam Hussein."
WILKERSON: Well, Wolf, my points were a little more precise than that.
My points had to do with the two issues, decision issues that I had the most profound insights into -- the one being the post-invasion situation in Iraq, and the inept and incompetent planning therefore, mostly led by Douglas Feith under secretary of defense for policy's outfit.
Scheuer is loony.
Scheur (sp) may be a looney, but he's right about not being able to win a war playing by PC rules. when I heard his quote, and then read it again, I could have slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. A DUH moment!
I heard this man and this woman.
A most excellent interview.
McGruff, I always forget folks, but I did add a link to the transcript on our Daily thread.
I smell desperation.
I also sense that, whatever scheme is being run out of the CIA, Wilkerson is a party to it.
That conclusion may, or may not, make Wilkerson suspect #1 for the "not a partisan gunslinger" role in Novak's story.
Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."
I guess he wasn't happy that they WORKED AROUND the entrenched denisons of State.
Wilkerson is loose with the tongue.
Now challenged he's dropping the Laroucheian "cabal" meme. Did he do it to gain moonbat support? Now he criticizes post war activities but hey, who doesn't?
Noticeably he popped up with his mini rants just before Fitzgerald's (previous) deadline...was he in fear?
Today Newsweek speculates Armitage as source one. Could be, he's in a position similar to Wilkerson under Powell, but I'm sticking with Wilkerson. He's got a big mouth.
mark.
And an exceedingly high opinion of himself.
I wouldn't want to be caught between his and Richard Clarke's egos...
and I loved the CIA guy discrediting Larry Johnson, who has been "out there" spinning for Val and Joe from day one.
Larry Johnson may be a former CIA analyst, he may be NBC's expert talking head, but most important to remember, he's Valerie Plame's media spokesman.
I am not a crazed soldier of fortune yahoo, I have children, I will rescue a stray dog or cat. I'm a christian and I think I'm pretty mellow. That being said, I think we should be annihilating that whole region and worry about their hearts and minds after they're begging for mercy. All cultures are not equal, and if we don't start giving them the business I fear this war will just drag on and on.
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