Well, the other shoe has dropped on the NIE/Tapegate and we see the neocons play their hand…the CIA dared to embarass Dear Leader and they must burn for it. Calling the CIA’s actions “mutiny” and calling them “traitors” Christopher Hitchens rolls right out there with this week’s wingnut spit take.
It seems flabbergastingly improbable that President George W. Bush learned of the National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iranian nuclear ambitions only a few days before the rest of us did, but the haplessness of his demeanor suggested that he might, in fact, have been telling the truth.
Pause to wipe monitor. This of course means the President is indeed a clueless chucklehead if he’s right, which is even more disturbing. Resume.
After all, had the administration known for any appreciable length of time that the mullahs had hit the pause button on their program in late 2003, it would have been in a position to make a claim that is quite probably true, namely, that our overthrow of Saddam Hussein had impressed the Iranians in much the same way as it impressed the Libyans and made them at least reconsider their willingness to continue flouting the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
More paper towels, for that’s exactly what the neocons are saying, thank you.
(Given that the examination of the immense Libyan stockpile also disclosed the fingerprints that led back to the exposure of the A.Q. Khan nuke-mart in Pakistan, the removal of Saddam from the chessboard has had more effect in curbing the outlaw WMD business than it is normally given credit for.)
Yes, because we scared the crap out of Pakistan, and made it instead a humble beacon of democracy.
Nobody seems entirely sure what caused our intelligence agencies to reverse their opinion, but it seems rather likely that the defection and/or abduction of Brig. Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, Iran’s former deputy minister of defense, in February of this year, has something to do with it. Asgari’s ostensibly principal job had been that of liaison with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but his debriefing could also have helped confirm pre-existing surmises about Iran’s reining-in of its nuclear ambitions.
Which is the most that can be said about those ambitions. It is completely false for anybody to claim, on the basis of this admitted “estimate,” that Iran has ceased to be a candidate member of the fatuously named nuclear “club.” It has the desire to acquire the weaponry, it retains the means to do so, and it has been caught lying and cheating about the process. If it suspended some overtly military elements of the project out of a justifiable apprehension in 2003, it has energetically persisted in the implicit aspects–most notably the installation of gas centrifuges at the plant in Natanz and the building of a heavy water reactor at Arak. All that the estimate has done is to define weaponry down and to suggest a distinction without much difference between a “civilian” and a “military” dimension of the same program. The acquisition of enriched uranium and of plutonium, for any purpose, is identical with the acquisition of a thermonuclear weapons capacity. Iran continues to strive to produce both, neither of which, as it happens, are required for its ostensible civilian energy needs.
All nuclear programs are inherently dangerous, unless they are allies of the US, then it’s okay. Ask India or Pakistan. Wait, bad example.
Ahh, but it gets worse. The wingnuts have latched onto this just like abolishing the Department of Edumacation, which morphed into No Child Left Thinking. Take it away, Cap’n And Tenille!
At one time, this proposal would have sounded ridiculous. How could we contemplate ridding ourselves of the turbulent priests of Langley in the middle of a war that focuses on intel and covert action more than any other we’ve fought? However, the agency’s performance over the last twenty years — and its blatant politicking and incompetence over the last few years — has changed the question to whether we can hope to win this war with the CIA we have.
Yes, that’s it. It’s not Bush’s fault we fouled up Iraq by cherry-picking intel and then making stupid policy decisions based on what Cheney wanted to hear, it’s the CIA’s fault for not realizing that this is their job, the partisan hacks!
The 9/11 Commission had an opportunity to address this issue, and it punted. Rather than insist on a consolidation of all intel efforts and a streamlining of management, they proposed a structure that kept all of the existing agencies as separate entities and slapped two more layers of management on top. It was a bureaucratic solution conceived by bureaucrats to solve a problem created by bureaucracy, as I wrote many times, and Congress bought it.
And it’s Congress’s fault too, the partisan hacks! You know, those damn Democrats who were in charge of the GOP-lead Congress in 2004!
Please take a big ol’ swig and get out the Brawny.
It’s time to reconceive intelligence in a post-Cold War world. Given that it serves to defend our nation, it should fall under military command.
Pause to wipe off monitor again. Yes, because the best way to reward those who misused our civilian intelligence gathering capabilities with little or no civilian oversight in order to gin up a needless war is to get rid of the civilian intelligence altogether and make it a purely military operation! Brilliant!
That may not be the most elegant solution, but clearly the supposed benefits of civilian management have not made themselves apparent in either accuracy or efficiency. The laws that govern military intelligence and covert operations would therefore extend to all of our efforts, and failures to abide by those laws would have secure methods of correction.
Because it’s not like this administration has abused the laws that govern military intelligence or covert operations in the efforts of say, Valerie PLame, Joe Wilson, Scooter Libby, etc. Again, we should TRUST Dear Leader, he’s earned it.
That would also bring intelligence efforts into the non-partisan world of the Pentagon.
Dammit Ed, I just refilled my drink!
Seriously, people still consider the Pentagon non-partisan? With the whole effort to evangelize the US military, the attempts to use them as shields to deflect criticisms of the President and the efforts of military leaders like General Petraeus to act as GOP proxies?
Sadly, Ed’s not kidding. The Pentagon is his idea of a non-partisan agency for running the country’s entire intelligence gathering efforts. Of course, that would include those focused on American citizens as well.
That culture would help minimize the apparent political efforts of analysts and managers at the CIA/ODNI. It would also consolidate intelligence efforts into a well-established command structure, one with a lot more discipline than seen at Langley since its inception.
Yep, because again, the Pentagon shows discipline (it’s those pesky military contractors that lack discipline.)
Before now, Congress and the Democrats could afford to ignore the crippling bureaucratic infighting between the CIA and the administration. Now, however, it has spilled over into Capitol Hill’s turf, and everyone has a reason to oppose the CIA’s continued loose-cannon antics. This provides us the best moment since the 9/11 Commission’s punt to re-think intelligence and create an effective and responsible mechanism with which to win this war.
Because after all a loose cannon Presidential administration doesn’t need to be addressed in the least.
It’s pretty clear that the wingnuts are lining up around the block to pin the complete failure of Bush’s foreign policy on the CIA’s back like a huge Purge Me sign.
Yeah, the CIA is full of some ugly ass sins. But let’s assign blame where it needs to go, to the guy at the top making the policy decisions for the country. Everything must be subsumed into the Cult of the Leader for these guys.
Will the Dems play along?
