Bamford Lifts Lid on Neocon Liars

New York Times -- Book Review ^ | June 30 | Michiko Kakutani

[LibertyBelt]

In addition Bamford suggests that the CIA caved in to pressure from hard-liners. He quotes a CIA case officer who says that in January 2003, one of the agency's higher-ups called a meeting and said, "If Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so."

Bamford is highly persuasive in recounting how U.S. intelligence agencies lacked specialists in many key Middle Eastern languages and a sufficient number of analysts to grapple with an avalanche of cyber-age data, and shows how even though Americans like John Walker Lindh had been secretly joining Al Qaeda, operatives appear to have made little effort to penetrate terror organizations, preferring the decorous, low-risk tack of trying to recruit foreign embassy officials at cocktail parties.

. Bamford observes that when Tenet declared war on terrorism - in the wake of the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa - it was so low-key that senior officials at the Pentagon and the FBI had not heard of it. And he points out that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who actually controls a large portion of America's spy world, was "far more concerned with downsizing the Pentagon than reorganizing and reinvigorating the intelligence community" when he entered office. . In the end Bamford's conclusions are alarming, if not unfamiliar ones: incompetence, timidity and a lack of readiness contributed to the failure to prevent the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and misinformation, ideology and poor intelligence led to the decision to go to war on Iraq.

[LibertyBelt]

Bamford has credibility as a writer but I haven't seen much by way of "Conservative" response to his revealing book. He ain't no M.Moore or knee-jerk libbie, and he seem to make a pretty good case that we been lied to by Rumsfeld and gang...unless we are still going to cling to the unproven notion that there were WMD's all over Iraq, we knew that, and they managed to outfox the best spies and military on earth by making it go poof in the night?

[saveliberty]

Why do we not hear about the possibility that WMD sales may have been a for profit business in Iraq? Why is it so unbelievable that we with a porous border can possibly think that Iraq did not have a porous border to ship items to Syria?

[Just mythoughts]

"Bamford has credibility as a writer but I haven't seen much by way of "Conservative" response to his revealing book."

Credibility, really??? So does he address the "wall" builder Gorelick from the Justice Department?

Blaming Rumsfeld as a key seems a bit jaded from my perspective.

[section9]

Actually, James Bamford is an accomplished observer of the military scene.

However, your argument is puerile. Any crafty man, motivated by crafty ends, can hide anything for a long period of time. Just because you have the "best" intelligence (which we don't) or the "best" military (which we do, but that is irrelevant) does not mean you'll get the answers right all the time.

We didn't have decent intelligence on the ground in Iraq from the early nineties on. Continued blood purges made short work of whatever assets we had there.

Finally, there is no need for a "conservative" response to Bamford's book. He rightly points out some of the flaws in our intelligence collecting apparatus. However, your contention that we were "lied" to by the Rummy/Wolfowitz/Rice Neocon Hook Nosed Jewish Banking Konspiracy leaves a bit to be desired, given the results of the reporting by the 9-11 Commission and the House of Commons Commission that cleared the Blair Government and MI-6 of any charges of falsehood.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Belisaurius]

Conservative response? LOL, to what? More attempts from the Protocols of Zion crowd trying to paint Bush as a dupe of the Neo-Cons?

I agree with your take completely. Nice to "be seeing you" again.

[vbmoneyspender]

He quotes a CIA case officer who says that in January 2003, one of the agency's higher-ups called a meeting and said, "If Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so."

This is ludicrous and anyone who believes it is a moron. Hussein was routinely firing missiles at our pilots right up until we launched the invasion of Iraq. Under any standard of what is considered to be an act of war, Hussein's routine firing of missiles at our pilots constituted repeated acts of war that Bush was more than entitled to respond to in the way that he did.

I find it particularly ludicrous that people are still arguing that we didn't have good reason for going to war against Hussein given that our multi-year failure to respond to Hussein's provocations tracked exactly how we had responded to bin Laden's provocations in the leadup to 9/11. Namely, when both of these thugs attacked our people, we tried as best as possible to ignore the provocations. Then we took some half-hearted measures like firing missiles into Baghdad and the terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Then we nothing came from our use of missiles, we went back to trying to ignore the problem.

Given this track record, which led to 3,000 of our people being killed by bin Laden, I find it incredible that people , on this site no less, are continuing to argue about whether it was a good idea to go in and takeout Hussein. Apparently, when people make such an argument they have completely lost the point of what 9/11 taught us, which is that when someone has declared war on you in both word and deed (as both bin Laden and Hussein had) then you have to respond forcefully to end the problem otherwise very bad things end up happening to your citizens.

[marron]

As others have pointed out, our intel people didn't catch the original Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, they didn't warn us that Japan was going to attack the Philippines. The invasion of South Korea caught us by surprise, as did the entry of Chinese troops into the frey. The seizure of the Iranian embassy caught us by surprise, we were never able to get the guys that attacked the Achille Lauro (until recently, we got them in Baghdad). The CIA didn't warn us about the invasion of Kuwait, they didn't warn us about 9/11, didn't figure out that North Korea was developing the bomb until recently, even though the IAEA had inspectors there watching them.

They didn't find out about Khadafi's nuclear program until he decided to tell us about it.

The best warning the CIA ever gets of an impending attack is "chatter" that tells them something is up, but not what and not where or when. Thats not much of a warning.

While swearing that Niger didn't sell any uranium to Iraq, they failed to notice that Niger did sell uranium to Libya.

You have to notice that while the CIA is pretty good at gathering some kinds of data, other kinds of data are very difficult to get. You have to be willing to do things most people don't want to do. John Walker Lindh could join the Taliban because he was willing to go live in the dirt for months or years. A guy with advanced degrees in Middle Eastern Studies, and a family, doesn't want to do that, he wants the job where he gets to live in Cairo and hang out in cafes.

A guy who knows Saddam's mind is a guy who sups with murderers, and is legally off-limits to recruitment. CIA's history in Iraq prior to the war was mostly about getting its people killed.

The CIA sent Wilson to Niger because they didn't have anyone there. And Wilson didn't do any true investigation because visitors aren't allowed to go where the uranium mines are. Subsequent visits by journalists have the same problem, which is why they, like Wilson, are limited to hanging around the capital asking obvious questions.

So the CIA gets a lot right, but don't expect omniscience. Which is why, since they have never forseen any attacks, you can't wait for the CIA to warn you or its too late. And when we bash Bush for going beyond CIA information, and looking at military intel, and British intel, before making a decision, it has a lot to do with CIA's very well known limitations.

[TopQuark]

You give yourself away by calling neocons -- whomever they are -- liars.

You are the least person on earth to judge someone on credibility.

[LibertyBelt]

Typical hysterical response from some of you; others had excellent things to say.

1. I NEVER associated neocons with the despicable views associated with hatred of Israel or Jews. Get a grip. Not every Conservative who thinks we shouldn't have gone to Iraq hates Jews. William Buckley: anti-Semite?

2. One of you characterized Bamford as an astute observor of the military, while another says I was attacking someone's reputation. I was merely posting about the argumements of a man that I very much respect. And if he made the quote about the CIA and Iraq, then he is the moron, not me.

3. One poster pointed out all the times the CIA got it wrong (But I believe the CIA came after Pearl Harbor, and I believe it has been proven by historians who don't need tenure from liberal administraighters! that FDR KNEW that the attack was coming, and betrayed America to get us into the war. That is besides the current comment.) It would seem that this is a good argument for some sort of reorganzing of intelligence. No one wants more 9-11's.

[TopQuark]

Typical hysterical response from some of you; others had excellent things to say.

I don't know who "some of us" are: I am a single person and don't represent any group.

I doubt you can point to a single word in my post that indicates hysteria on my part. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone else?

1. I NEVER associated neocons with the despicable views associated with hatred of Israel or Jews. Get a grip. Not every Conservative who thinks we shouldn't have gone to Iraq hates Jews. William Buckley: anti-Semite? I never said that, and I never suspected you, let alone accuse, you of being an anti-Semite. Yes, I am Jewish, but I think it is preposterous if someone makes such a horrible accusation without really good proof. If someone did it to you, you are right to be offended, and I will stand with you.

However, all that being said, it is true that many people nowadays, do hide their anti-Semitism behind attacks on the neocons. Since you happen to advance the same criticism of neocons --- whoever they are, by some measures they include Ronald Reagan --- you should be aware that some people will misunderstand you, only because of the company you happen to keep.

Thank you for your measured response: as I said, you had the right to feel offended and yet remained thoughtful and calm. That does not always happen on FR. Thank you.