Practice questions for your CIA exam!
by JohnHuang2
U.S. intelligence missed Pakistan’s nukes, India’s nukes, the Soviets’ nukes, North Korea’s nukes, Iraq’s no nukes, the Soviet collapse, Cuban missile crises, the Holocaust, Tet Offensive, Iraq invading Kuwait, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Sudan’s Aspirin factory, Osama’s and Mullah Omar’s whereabouts. Other than these, U.S. intel is the best (except for the Mossad, Britain’s MI6, Russia’s SVR, Canada’s CSIS, etc.) and there’s nothing more intellectually challenging and rewarding than a career as an intelligence analyst. To qualify for employment in this demanding field, critical thinking is important. Analytical skill is essential. You must be able to look at seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of complicated facts and data points and consistently connect the dots, then methodically disconnect them.
To give you an idea of what to expect, and to see if you possess the amazing skills required, try the sample test questions below and see if you qualify to be a CIA analyst!
1. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate says ignore the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate. It was wrong. The 2005 NIE judged with high confidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. The 2007 NIE judges with high confidence Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program — or the program was mothballed in 2003 and it took 16 agencies only over four years to find out. In 2003, the U.S. was bombing Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, believing Iraq possessed WMDs, based on the slam-dunk 2002 NIE. Given these facts, which of the following is the most likely reason behind the timing of Iran’s suspending its nuclear program:
A. The Iranian mullahs did not want to suffer the same fate as Saddam, so the Shia Crecenters reached for the pause button, just in case.
B. The Iraq war had nothing to do with it — Iran’s rulers were always filled with peaceful intentions, and were moved by the power of diplomacy, although it wasn’t happening yet.
(If your answer was “B”, CONGRATULATIONS! You’re on your way to being a CIA analyst.)
2. Iran holds the world’s second-largest oil and gas reserves. Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer. Iran has repeatedly threatened Israel with nuclear annihilation, vowing (in Apocalyptic language) to engulf the Mideast in a nuclear conflagration, to pave the way for the return of the 12th Imam. So, given these facts, which of the following is the most likely purpose behind Iran’s uranium enrichment program, with 3,000 centrifuges going full tilt:
A. To produce The Bomb.
B. To generate peaceful electricity.
(Correct answer: B)
3. Iran has just finished successfully testing the Ashoura, a solid-fuel, multistage missile with a range of 1,240 miles, putting Europe in range. Given these facts, the Ashoura missile:
A. Represents a giant milepost on the road to developing a nuclear-tipped, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), since an ICBM without a nuclear warhead makes little military sense.
B. Represents a milepost in peaceful Iran’s space program!
(Correct answer was obviously B, again.)
4. The 2007 NIE involves events in Iran in 2003, which took four years to uncover, by accident. Which means:
A. The latest NIE is four years out of date, useless in formulating current policy, since Iran could have restarted its nuclear program after 2003 undetected.
B. The NIE is very timely and accurate, Joe Wilson said so, and driving using only the rear-view mirror can be very safe.
(The only correct answer is: B)
5. The 2007 NIE claims that Iran’s uranium enrichment and weaponization programs were shelved in 2003. Ahmadinejad then gets “elected”, the uranium enrichment resumes, so it’s logical to suspect the weaponization program:
A. Resumed as well.
B. Did not resume. Relax. Islamic republics led by madmen are always peaceful.
(Only possible answer: B)
6. The 2007 NIE pegs its revised assertions about Iran almost solely on an Iranian defector, the kind of source which:
A. Should be viewed with suspicion, given Iranian deception.
B. Should not be viewed with suspicion because Iran would never use the oldest trick in the book. Trust us. We’re the experts.
(No-brainer answer: B)
Now, to experience what it actually feels like to be a CIA analyst, think of your head as a thermometer. Next, take this thermometer and move it near the terminal section of the anal canal; insert the thermometer . . . there! You’re now a CIA ANALyst!
*** WE INTERRUPT THIS WONDERFUL CIA EXAM TO BRING YOU . . . some warmonger thoughts and observations ***
Thomas Fingar, Kenneth Brill and Vann H. Van Diepen — the three honchos who put the NIE summary together — suddenly discovered Iran’s not a threat by intercepting phone messages — phone messages between Bush and Cheney about bombing Iran, oh, sometime soon. If you’re Thomas Fingar, and you hate that George BusHitler, you want to take Iran off the table for ‘08, military-wise, and if the agitpoop about Iran’s Shia Crecenters turning a new leaf knocks the props out from under the sanctions regime, which already looked pretty shaky, all the better.
After that Syrian nuke site got taken out in a fly-by, Fingar didn’t need a moist fingar in the wind to figure something big was cooking, militarily, Iran-wise. But Brill, Van Diepen and moist Fingar thought they had it all fingared out — relax, put out the bogus report, the press signs on, sea change in opinion follows, talk skews toward doing nothing, mullahs off the hook, Bush’s War Machine throttled back.
And with big chunks of Tehran’s nuke operations probably compartmentalized further after ‘03 to keep the leaks down, and no real U.S. Humint on the ground, the three NIE stooges figured, ‘don’t worry, nothing to contradict us, ‘08 election’s in the bag.’ Problem is, if they’re high on confidence at Langley, they’re high on confidence in Tehran, given how the mullahs aren’t playing ball, airing hourly updates on how much uranium they’re enriching. Ahmaneedajob said on Tuesday the goal now is getting 50,000 centrifuges up and running, enough fuel for one nuclear baby milk factory, Allah willing.
For the NIE chaps, another hitch is how the public opinion sea change part of the scam isn’t sea-changing either — just 18 percent believing Iran’s mullahs mothballed their nuke program in ‘03, according to a new Rasmussen poll, meaning it’s down to the Caliphate-loving, mullah-huggers.
The NIE isn’t faring much better overseas. The Brits, the French, the Germans, NATO — all laughed it off, and as far as the Mideast goes, no one there is buying either. Uranium enrichment is the biggest hurdle to going nuclear, but at the rate the mullahs are going, they’d get The Bomb by 2009, except that they won’t. Fingar and the boys banked on their little goofy paint job shielding Iran from the moron cowboy chimperor, not realizing they were having another intelligence failure! The new NIE means Russia and China bail on tougher sanctions, but that puts the military option right back on the table. Awwww, poor mullahs. Breaks my heart.
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
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