I listed a number of specific, overtly political, unprecedented CIA actions, and all you can do is allege fantasies of persecution on the part of the White House. Really lame.
Frontline, to its credit, did give some background on the nature of the problem between Cheney and the CIA, and it had nothing to do with evil politicians corrupting pure intelligence analysis. It had to do with the CIA's history of incompetence.
Cheney was a veteran of the Cold War and Gulf War I. During this period, the CIA missed the fall of the Berlin Wall, missed the uprisings in Eastern Europe, and missed the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Iraq, they completely missed a nuclear weapons program that was big, of many years standing, and nearing completion.
Is it any wonder that Cheney and Rumsfeld decided that the CIA was not to be relied on?
Now, when the national intelligence agency loses the confidence of its number 1 and number 2 customers (Executive and Defense), this is bad news all around, and is going to lead to bad outcomes.
If the intelligence agency was functional it might concentrate on regaining the confidence of its customers. If it's not functional, it will concentrate on CYA-ing and passing the blame, and you just saw a lovely example of that last night. Frontline is a serious news program, so it saved itself from becoming outright CIA propaganda, but the CIA certainly managed to spin thing its way. |
