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

To: LindyBill who wrote (89440)	12/6/2004 1:37:58 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793939

Outside the beltway - Scheuer: Why I Resigned From the CIA Posted by James Joyner at 11:39 Imperial Hubris author Michael Scheuer has a column in today's LAT explaining, "Why I Resigned From the CIA." It has several interesting observations: I do not profess a broad expertise in international affairs, but between January 1996 and June 1999 I was in charge of running operations against Al Qaeda from Washington. When it comes to this small slice of the large U.S. national security pie, I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden — either by capture or by U.S. military attack. * The 9/11 commission report documents most of the occasions on which senior U.S. bureaucrats and policymakers had the chance to attack Bin Laden in 1998-1999. It is mystifying that the American public has not been outraged over these missed opportunities. Note the dates here. His tenure was entirely during the Clinton Administration, during which Richard Clarke was the White House terrorism advisor. While the Left consistently focused on Scheuer's critique of the Bush Administration's response to 9/11, especially the Iraq War, it is worth noting that Scheuer was equally frustrated with Bush's predecessor. Referring to Clarke and others, Scheuer fumes: Each of these officials have publicly argued that the intelligence was not "good enough" to act, but they almost always neglect to say that they were repeatedly advised that the intelligence was not going to get better and that Bin Laden was going to kill thousands of Americans if he was not stopped. * Perhaps a starting point is for Americans to ask why no member of Congress' Graham-Goss investigation or the Kean-Hamilton commissioners ever directly asked Clarke, former national security advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, CIA Director George J. Tenet, former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, former Secretary of State [sic] William S. Cohen* or any of the rest of the witnesses why they never erred on the side of protecting Americans; why international opinion was ultimately more important than the Americans who leaped from the World Trade Center; and why the intelligence was "good enough" to save the life of an Arab prince dining with bin Laden, but not "good enough" to cause the government to act on behalf of Americans. I would note, however, that Scheuer undermined his own efforts somewhat by the tone of Imperial Hubris and some of his comments to the press during its publicity tour. By focusing so much on the Iraq War and the Bush Administration--all the better to generate a huge buzz from an anti-Bush, anti-war press corps--he took attention away from what he now rightly notes is the more important issue. Further, it's rather ironic that Clarke and Scheuer are such intense rivals. They both suffer from the "if only they had listened to me" plight of the aggrevied functionary. Even if one presumes that Clarke and Scheuer are absolutely correct in their presentation of past events, it is understandable that those above them in the chain of command took al Qaeda less seriously than they did. It is a virtual tautology that the specialist thinks those above him fails to appreciate the important of his work. outsidethebeltway.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (89440)	12/6/2004 1:58:45 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793939

In another sign that so-called Iranian "reformers" have lost their credibility among the masses, Iranian students today heckled President Mohammed Khatami in a speech to mark Student Day at Tehran University. Very strange. Khatami is the one guy they should be cheering. I'm currently reading Pollack's book on Iran, The Persian Puzzle. I commend it highly. Pollack's analysis is typically dispassionate, well-researched, and thorough. There are no good options with respect to Iran. The hardliners detest us, the rest of the populace, or at least a goodly percentage of it, detests the hardliners, who are mostly clerics, but really do like the US. The catch is that Iranians, even the most liberal, are incredibly xenophobic, so anything we might do to destabilize the clerics will rally the Iranian reformers/liberals around the hardliners. Plus, the so-called "reformers" are not exactly the types we would like to have take over Iran. They are simply a improvement, but not necessarily a great one, over the clerics and hardliners. I agree with Pollack's notion that the Iranians are not the same kind of crazy risk takers that Saddam was, and are therefore unlikely to present the same kind of challenge that Saddam did. On the other hand, if they get their hands on nuclear weapons, they might easily be tempted to do things that they might not otherwise do but for owning nukes. No good options, particularly as the clerics are trying to follow the China model. i.e., liberalize socially and economically in order to dampen anger towards the hardliners but pursue a radical foreign policy while maintaining a repressive domestic political agenda. Like the Chinese, the clerics think that domestic liberalization will give them freedom of action. Pollack suggests a three-part policy consisting of a combination of pushing a Grand Bargain, i.e, total resolution of our problems with Iran, which he thinks is unlikely, mixed in with very detailed program of sticks and carrots depending on Iranian behavior, with containment as the third leg. Only under the most necessary circumstances should we consider military action. We should also not consider destabilizing the clerics since it would boomerang against us--all Iranians are paranoid about our intentions, even the most liberal ones who really do like the US.