THE CIA VS. THE WHITE HOUSE: THE SPOOKS BLOW IT AGAIN
Rick Moran CATEGORY: CIA VS. THE WHITE HOUSE
Right Wing Nut House
How many times can one agency be so wrong about so many things while at the same time selectively leaking classified data in order to put themselves in the best possible light and engage in partisan back stabbing?
The list of events and trends that the CIA has failed to either alert the government to or analyzed incorrectly in their capacity as the nation’s foreign watch dogs is astonishing. Over the past quarter century, they have proven themselves to be not just inept but also foolish, arrogant, corrupt, and incompetent as the forces of history and the machinations of evil men escaped their myopic gaze resulting in the injury and death to thousands of United States citizens. Their mistakes have also cost the US in the arena of diplomacy as faulty – sometimes ludicrous – analysis regarding both our friends and enemies has placed our diplomats and negotiators on unsound footing.
We are not talking about some Mickey Mouse third world assassination squad. We are talking about an agency with a classified budget that some have estimated to be as high as $70 billion dollars. It is an agency that is supposed to be staffed by our best and brightest minds. They have at their disposal some of the most mind-blowing gadgetry ever dreamed up – euphemistically referred to as “National Technical Means – that can see and even hear what our enemies may be up to.
What they cannot do is peer into the minds and hearts of people who would do us harm. For that, our leaders depend on the judgment of an army of analysts. With access to intelligence from thousands of sources both overt and covert, these career employees are supposed to leave their own ideological biases at home in order to give the most intelligent and thoughtful analysis based on the facts available that they can.
Instead, the safety and security of our country has been held hostage by a group of ideologues – of both the left and right – who seek to advance their partisan and ideological agendas while the crazies of the world plot to destroy us.
A short list of “missing the big picture”:
An analysis by the newly minted agency in 1949 assured President Truman that the Soviets were a decade away from building an atomic weapon. Before the end of that summer, the Soviets had tested their first nuclear device.
The CIA failed to anticipate the invasion of South Korea by North Korea despite a massive buildup of NoKo forces. They also failed to anticipate the entry of China into the war 6 months later.
The CIA was wildly off target in their estimate of China’s nuclear potential, believing that the Reds were 5 years away from having the bomb the same year – 1964 – that China exploded its first nuclear device.
An analysis in 1989 found the collapsing Soviet Union was planning a “manned mission to Mars” sometime after 2000.
The agency missed the invasion of Kuwait in 1991, calling Saddam’s massive build-up on the border “saber rattling.”
The CIA consistently failed in the 1990’s to penetrate the #1 enemy of the United States – al Qaeda. The results of which were catastrophic.
Despite warnings, the CIA failed to anticipate the 9/11 attack.
And now we can add to this list the fact that the CIA was wildly off target in its estimate of when the mad mullahs in Iran would have their hands on a nuclear weapon.
Last summer in a leak designed to undermine the Administration’s case for sanctions against Iran, cherry-picked facts from a National Intelligence Estimate showed that the consensus in the government was that Iran was more than a decade away from being able to build a nuclear weapon:
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A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that “all options are on the table.”
The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran’s military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program. What is clear is that Iran, mostly through its energy program, is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be diverted to bomb making.
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Even at the time I thought that was a ridiculous statement. So did the Israelis:
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Israeli intelligence officials estimate that Iran could be capable of producing enriched uranium within six months and have nuclear weapons within two years. Earlier this month, head of Israeli military intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze’evi said that while Iran was not currently capable of enriching uranium to build a nuclear bomb, “it is only half a year away from achieving such independent capability – if it is not stopped by the West.”
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Guess who was closer to being right – Mossad or CIA? It turns out that according to the UN nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) and the IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei, Iran is 6 months away from having their hands on the bomb:
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IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel’s assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.
If Tehran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only “a few months” to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.
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As it turns out, the CIA’s “analysis” of Iranian nuclear capability was ludicrously wrong.
How can we continue to put up with this incompetence? Anyone who believes that a nuclear Iran is not a threat to the very existence of the United States is massively fooling themselves. While the mullahs wouldn’t give a nuclear weapon to al Qaeda (we think – that analysis also comes from the CIA) there are any number of fanatics who would be glad to set off a couple of nukes on US soil. And if Iran believed that whoever was President wouldn’t retaliate massively, they would be more than willing to take the chance in order to have the US descend into an economic and social chaos we would be a decade or more recovering from.
In order to imagine a nuclear device going off and destroying a major American city, think New Orleans then multiply by ten. The economic shock alone would throw millions out of work. And the social cost of millions of refugees fleeing both the blast and fallout would throw American society into chaos. The demand for safety and security would put pressure on lawmakers to enact restrictions on our freedoms that would make the Patriot Act look like a walk in the park by comparison.
And suppose we did retaliate against Iran?
Have you noticed who is cozying up to the radicals in Tehran recently?
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The statement appeared timed to head off the heated reaction expected from the United States after Russian media reported Friday that officials had signed contracts in November that would send up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems to Iran over the next two years.
The Interfax news agency said the Tor-M1 system could identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet.
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Putin has also offered to enrich Iran’s uranium as part of a deal involving the EU. The problem with this “deal” is that once the Iranians get their hands on even partially enriched uranium, it is not a big deal to further enrich the nuclear material to make weapons grade uranium.
Suppose we were to retaliate against an Iranian sponsored terrorist nuclear attack by leveling Tehran and a few other Iranian cities? The outcry against us would make criticism of our Iraq policies seem tame. And that fallout cloud could very well drift into Russian territory – something that Mr. Putin would frown on and may feel compelled to respond to.
There is no getting around it. Iran must be stopped and soon. We know it. The Israelis know it. The Europeans know it. The UN knows it.
The question that must be asked is anyone going to do anything about it? Iran is betting that the world will fiddle while they build. They have indicated that they will not stop enriching uranium regardless of what the Europeans or Americans think.
And given the recent track record of the CIA’s analysis on Iran, the frightening prospect of agency blunders leading us toward a nuclear precipice is a real possibility.
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