Sunday, August 29, 2004

Intelligence failures

From Kos:

And no, I'm not talking about Bush's intellect.

Bush has been president for four years, yet we have had to suffer the following "intelligence failures":

  • 9/11. Ashcroft de-emphasizes anti-terrorist activities in order to satiate his anti-pornography obsession. Bush completely ignores a document titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the United States" and promptly went on a month-long vacation.

  • Plame Affair. The administration outs the CIA's top nuclear non-proliferation official in bid to discredit administration critic.

  • Saddam's WMD. Bush and Cheney make clear they want evidence, regardless the truth. They create a shadow intelligence inside the Pentagon to independently assess intelligence when CIA doesn't offer the expected "truth".

  • Saddam's WMD, Part II. Colin Powell makes an ass of himself at Security Council when he tries to prove Saddam's evil intent, and proves nothing more than that Iraq has warehouses and trucks.

  • Chalabi. The Pentagon's top choice for Iraq's post-war leadership lets Iran know we have cracked their communication code. Once upon a time we could listen in to one of the Axil of Evil's most guarded communications, including communications with terrorist groups like Hizbollah. Now we cannot. An intelligence failure of epic proportions.

  • Administration outs Al Qaida mole. We finally turn one of Bin Laden's baddies, and the administration outs him days later to justify terror alert. Terror alert turns out to be unjustifiable anyway, based on years-old info.


  • Ouch. This is one brutal failure after another, and aside from 9-11, the rest are ALL the fault of the politicians in the Bush Administration.

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    Entire post.

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