Posted on 09/23/2002 5:35:45 AM PDT by schon
What explains US intelligence failures? by Gerard Jackson TNA News with Commentary No. 347 September 2002
Why didn’t American intelligence foresee and take counter measures against the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre? What was the FBI doing? These questions are now being asked. And there are going to be a lot more in the near future. Of course, some will argue that it is impossible for an American to infiltrate one of these groups. Language, culture and appearance make it impossible. This is not entirely true. During the time of the Raj British military intelligence frequently infiltrated tribal groups who operated on the North West frontier, often countering Russian influence. Not for nothing did Kipling call it the “great game”.
So why US intelligence has failed so badly in dealing with Middle Eastern terrorists. The answer lies in Congress. To be more specific, Democratic Congressmen who went out of their way to cripple America’s intelligence agencies. In this endeavour they had the aid and encouragement of the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). An extreme leftwing organisation that has not only supported every communist regime that ever existed but every leftwing terrorists organisation, specially the PLO.
For years the IPS waged a successful campaign of vilification against America’s intelligence agencies, even as it was cooperating with the KGB, Castro’s DGI and other communist intelligence agencies. Thank to this campaign and the policy of exposing CIA operatives, one of whom was murdered, the CIA’s international network of contacts was badly compromised with foreign contacts cutting off communications from fear of being exposed.
In 1975 the CNSS (Center for National Securities Studies) — an IPS front — produced Abuses of the Intelligence Agencies a brazen piece of disinformation which influenced the Church and Pike committees that had been set up to investigate American intelligence agencies. This was no surprise considering that not only were KGB agents Wilfred Burchett and Philip Agee mainly responsible for the contents of the publication but both committees, especially the Church committee, had a significant number of sympathisers and members of the IPS on their staffs. When Carter became president in 1977 he appointed IPS sympathisers to the White House staff who were virtually given carte blanche to dismantle the America’s intelligence structure, which is just what they did.
Without the activities of the IPS the 1974 Hughes-Ryan Act would never have come into existence. This pernicious piece of legislation crippled intelligence operations by guaranteeing they would be leaked to America’s enemies. Which of course was what really lay behind the Act. There are two common threads here: a) those who took measures to cripple intelligence gathering were all Democrats; b) they were all connected by one means or another to the pro-Soviet IPS.
Opposition to the Intelligence Agents Identities Protection Act consisted entirely of hardcore Democrats like Pat Schroeder, Charles Schumer and John Conyers. The Act had been designed to protect the lives of American agents by preventing anyone from revealing their identities. Needless to say, opponents of the Act were all associated with the IPA.
Because of the IPS and its congressional supporters American intelligence had been put in a straitjacket that denied it the power to keep track of the Islamic terrorist network that has been formed in the US. Federal agents could not without great difficulty even attend conferences that pro-terrorist speakers address! They could not even put these pro-terrorist groups under surveillance unless they provide the Attorney General with almost irrefutable proof that a crime, say the bombing of the World Trade Centre, is going to be committed. How this evidence is to be obtained without surveillance or infiltration was never explained by the likes of Charles Schumer and John Conyers.
And who was the driving force behind this legislation? That’s right, the IPS. This is what the pro-Soviet, pro-Castro, pro-PLO Richard Barnet, one of the founders of the IPS, had to say about American intelligence: “…[it’s] a criminal enterprise which must be dismantled.”
This is what General George Washington said in 1777 about the need for intelligence gathering: “The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged — all that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as Secret as possible. For upon secrecy, success depends in Most Enterprises of the Kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned and promising a favorable issue.”
But then Washington was a patriot, unlike certain other so-called Americans, including some in Congress and the Senate.
The situation under Clinton’s watch was no better. Under his stewardship the standard for the recruitment of foreign agents and informants was raised to a level so strict that John the Baptist wouldn’t have passed muster. This had the intended effect of crippling the accumulation of foreign assets. I say intended because what other explanation could there be for a policy that crippled foreign intelligence gathering?
Without sound intelligence the human cost of effectively dealing with terrorism is only going to rise.
Through his girl friend, Bianca Jagger.
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