A Blow to Bush's Tehran Policy - washingtonpost.comIs this the same CIA that was sure Saddam had an active (as opposed to a standby) bio and chem weapons program? That made mistakes leading up to 9/11? That won't have anything bad happen to it IF they're wrong, and various places in the ME go up in a could of smoke?President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.
The new intelligence report released yesterday not only undercut the administration's alarming rhetoric over Iran's nuclear ambitions but could also throttle Bush's effort to ratchet up international sanctions and take off the table the possibility of preemptive military action before the end of his presidency.
Well... how credible should I find them? And if, by chance, they'd come out and said the Iranian government was trying hard to produce nuclear weapons... would the same people touting their acumen on this subject NOW be willing to say they're correct in their call?
My thought? The CIA is tainted to the core with partisan politics. Would we be better off with them, or without them?
J.
Comments (1)
Well, coming from one of the Intel Community agencies that is not CIA, I an say that the thing is broken and has been for some time. My thoughts on the NIE run differently than most, and possibly worse than most... especially the part most people are ignoring, which seems pretty damning to me.
INTEL works well when it has a highly accountable chain of command and dedicated personnel. Civilian agencies have a hard time developing that and sustaining it... just look at the State Dept. for the CIA equivalent in a different area. It can be forced to work, but we have not had a President willing to exercise the Executive powers inside government for at least 35 years and properly going on 60 years. Part of that is an outgrowth of Congress wanting more power, more money and more control... part of that are Presidents that are unwilling to uproot the problem and start shaking it. This is no longer a 'point source' problem just in the CIA: it is government-wide and systemic outside of the armed forces. This form of government was never meant to have so much to do... and it shows.
Posted by ajacksonian | December 11, 2007 1:59 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 13:59