Was the war with it?

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by outlier

Regarding intelligence... I've spent a lot of time studying the CIA and how it works and, while (sorry for sounding like an idiot here) I'm not at liberty to detail the circumstances, I've had some very frank discussions with case workers in the CIA's Directorate of Operations. All of these led me to a simple understanding: Washington largely determines what it is that intelligence finds. E.g., Washington wants x and so it's the CIAs job to find x -- regardless of how much actual evidence there is that x exists. And when the Senate intelligence committee keeps coming back and telling you that x *must* exist, well, eventually you start seeing it in places where you already determined it wasn't.

Hmmmm, I don't doubt some DO case officers suggest this is how it works, but I wouldn't put a lot of stock in their assessments, particularly since they are several levels removed from policymakers ("Washington"). As you are probably aware, every report generated by a case officer in the field becomes part of a larger stream of information (that includes the press, communications, etc.), which is then used in intelligence analysis by the Directorate of Intelligence, taking into consideration all pertinent information. That analysis is then presented to policymakers in various forms. Rarely is raw intelligence reporting passed directly to policymakers without putting it into context.

In the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, Paul Pilar, a CIA careerist who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000-2005, does a pretty good job of laying out how the intelligence community can be politicized. It can be found here:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200603...r-in-iraq.html

I find it interesting that Pilar admits the CIA blew it on WMD, just like the rest of the world, and decides to focus on how the Al Qaeda-Saddam connection was politicized. As for the politicization of intelligence, Pilar notes that the crude form that you’ve described above of insisting that the CIA produce the desired intelligence or conclusions is "rare" and "almost always unsuccessful." Politicization of intelligence is much more subtle.

Pilar puts it this way:

"The actual politicization of intelligence occurs subtly and can take many forms. Context is all-important. Well before March 2003, intelligence analysts and their managers knew that the United States was heading for war with Iraq. It was clear that the Bush administration would frown on or ignore analysis that called into question a decision to go to war and welcome analysis that supported such a decision. Intelligence analysts -- for whom attention, especially favorable attention, from policymakers is a measure of success -- felt a strong wind consistently blowing in one direction. The desire to bend with such a wind is natural and strong, even if unconscious."

If true, this is a cop out. Pilar paints a picture of intelligence analysts that, afraid to give bad news, bent to the "strong wind consistently blowing in one direction." If this is true, the CIA bears an even greater responsibility. He was in a position to put out plenty of analysis warning against going into Iraq; he didn't need to wait for policymakers to ask the question. Why didn't he? (I ask rhetorically.)

Leading up to the war the CIA believed Saddam had WMD, was working to expand on his store, and had some type of contact with Al Qaeda (the depth of which it was uncertain).

My bottom line is this, Tenet said, "Slam dunk!" and sat behind Powell at the UN, an endorsement of Powell’s message. He did this with the backing of the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community. That they were so ill informed and supposedly "tilted" to political pressure shows that they did not serve the President very well.

[Robin]

I was watching Fox News the other night. A business program. The war has been very good for business, according to Fox.

[outlier]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

In the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, Paul Pilar, a CIA careerist who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000-2005, does a pretty good job of laying out how the intelligence community can be politicized. It can be found here:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200603...r-in-iraq.html

I find it interesting that Pilar admits the CIA blew it on WMD, just like the rest of the world, and decides to focus on how the Al Qaeda-Saddam connection was politicized. As for the politicization of intelligence, Pilar notes that the crude form that you’ve described above of insisting that the CIA produce the desired intelligence or conclusions is "rare" and "almost always unsuccessful." Politicization of intelligence is much more subtle.

The fact that it happens is probably more important than the details of *how* it happen. My "crude" description was intended to be a fairly vague one that IMHO doesn't conflict with the gentleman's assertion that subtle politicization occurs. (At any rate, I don't see any extremely strong implication in my paragraph that there's often direct contact between members of congress and actual case and reports officers, but I can see how that could have been read into my statement.)

OTOH, I think his point about how intelligence was ignored in other areas is pretty interesting -- thanks for pointing out the piece.

My bottom line is this, Tenet said, "Slam dunk!" and sat behind Powell at the UN, an endorsement of Powell’s message. He did this with the backing of the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community. That they were so ill informed and supposedly "tilted" to political pressure shows that they did not serve the President very well.

Or that there were people in charge who were more interested in career advancement than altruism and propriety. (Although my memory of the time was that it took an awful long time for Tenet to finally say something to this effect and it came long after it was clear that the hawks were going to go into Iraq.) Regardless, I agree that things didn't go down the way they should have.

o

[realtall]

I had always assumed that one of the reasons(maybe even one of the biggest) was to have an unfettered US base right smack dab in the middle of the middle east. The one in Saudi Arabia was very limited in nature and the locals could pretty much tell our military what they could and could not do while there. No such problem in Iraq. We can send bombers, fighters, intelligence gathering planes(AWACs, 'listening planes', etc), and anything else that you can think of. This aspect alone has to make the surrounding nations very, very nervous.

Also, if memory serves the war drums for Iraq starting beating about the time that the Saudi base bas being closed.