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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (53844)	7/11/2004 2:00:42 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793928

Yes, obviously our intel was faulty. But before landing like a ton of bricks on the CIA (which probably deserves it), it is only fair to note that nobody else's intel seems to have been any better on the subject. Not Britain. Not France or Germany, who did not have our predispositions. Not Israel. Police states are tough to infiltrate, and in this case, even a high level mole would not have helped. If the Iraqi generals thought Saddam had WMD, what different news would a mole have brought us?

To: Ilaine who wrote (53844)	7/12/2004 9:01:20 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793928

<<< "there is nothing wrong with our intel." Which I perceive - correct me if I am wrong - as an assertion that we had all the relevant facts in there somewhere, we just willfully ignored them in favor of facts we preferred to believe.>>> You can't prove a negative eg "there are no WMD in Iraq", but I am willing to bet dollars to donuts (Krispy Kreme) that there were plenty of people in the CIA who questioned the validity of the evidence that there was WMD in Iraq. It will be a gigantic waste of money to remake the intelligence community when all it needs is to get rid of some of the politicians who don't belong there in the first place. Similarly, you let the generals run the military and you let the intelligence officers run the intelligence community. The generals and the intelligence officers report to civilians. The civilians are there for oversight - not to micromanage the operation. I am sure Rumsfeld and crew think they are far smarter than the career employees. Maybe they are, but that's not their job. Again, the validity of : high boastings by the proud, bring sorrow to the height, to punish pride"