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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (36774)	2/2/2004 9:37:32 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The Were Weapons Of Mass Erection Maybe?LOL!(eom)

To: mishedlo who wrote (36774)	2/3/2004 12:56:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 89467

....Where does this leave the idea of an outside investigation? There are six ongoing investigations in the U.S. -- two in Congress, three in the Executive, and one under Charles A. Duelfer, Mr. Kay's successor. It would seem reasonable to let them finish before starting a seventh. But to jump ahead in a thought-experiment, how might such an outside review propose correcting the spies' foolishness, assuming it found such? Take the solution most often proposed -- including by Mr. Kay: Put less emphasis on technical intelligence and more on human collection. Well, suppose that CIA director George Tenet had emphasized human intelligence even more than he does already and had succeeded a year ago in recruiting a batch of Iraqi generals as spies -- an incredible achievement. But then each one had honestly but falsely reported that Saddam had WMD, at specific locations. We would still have an intelligence failure. What Mr. Kay has described as Iraq's "vortex of corruption" seems to have created an intelligence twilight zone. Maybe better human intelligence could have detected that zone and helped foster more skepticism. There are probably a number of things that we will be able to learn from the pre-war history of WMD estimates. But the indignant should give the rest of us a hint about how U.S. intelligence should have proceeded to get to the truth about the Iraqi WMD programs in these circumstances..... online.wsj.com