One year before Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the agency produced a National Intelligence Estimate saying that Iraq was too exhausted and internally occupied to think about war. A supervisor's request to analysts to take a second look at those findings triggered accusations of "politicizing intelligence," says a former CIA official involved in that debate. The mistaken view prevailed and guided the CIA's assessment in July 1990 that no invasion of Kuwait was about to occur.
Such misjudgments have continued until today. After four months of inconclusive debate following Sept. 11, the agency produced a new analysis last spring titled: "Iraq and al Qaeda: A Murky Relationship." It fails to make much of a case for anything, I am told. It echoes the views of Paul Pillar, the national intelligence officer for the Middle East and South Asia, and other analysts who have consistently expressed doubts that Iraq has engaged in international terrorism or trained others to do so since 1993.
One reason I recommend the Pollack book so highly is for its accurate portrayal of how actual serious professionals view things such as Iraq policy, intelligence, and so forth. In his chapter on the history of Iraq policy during the 1990s, for example, he takes one through not just the events but how different schools of thought within the professional community viewed those events. He himself identifies with a group he calls moderate hawks, or something like that--folks who included Martin Indyk, Mark Parris, Bruce Riedel, and some others.
Serious, unpoliticized analysis of policy questions comes so naturally to Pollack that he notes--in the chapter's first footnote--that he had to be told by somebody else that lay readers of his book would need to be alerted to the fact that the internal divisions over Iraq policy bore little or no relationship to the kind of trash talking BS one hears on TV, the web, and in most newspaper columns. That is, despite what outsiders think, Iraq policy was NOT a battle among virtuous Churchillian Cassandras and vile Chamberlainian appeasers; it was not a matter of character or pure domestic politicking; etc.
The reason I bring this up is because this attitude does not come easily to nonprofessionals, even someone like Hoagland, who is no dummy and not some conspiracy-theory-peddling third-rate hack. His column simply does not give an accurate picture of what has gone on with regard to the intelligence connecting Iraq and terrorism. Paul Pillar--who Hoagland cites above as a major part of the problem and (implicitly) some kind of careerist politicized appeasing wimp--is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable, and wisest experts on terrorism in the country. He published the best book on the subject prior to 9/11 ("Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy," Brookings, 2001), and happens to be an Iraq hawk, although one would never gather that from the Hoagland piece. I was chatting with him (Pillar) the other day, for example, and he told me that he thought the Pollack book was outstanding and far and away the best thing out there on the subject, and that he agreed with Pollack nearly 100% across the board.
tb@settingtherecordstraight.com |
