doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Are these liberals you guys talking about?

I didn't like the fact that William Jefferson lied, but this current bunch.... :
Let us stay the couse so Halliburton can make even more money.

Ed, the African embassy attacks occurred in August 98, several months before Clinton received the PDB item about OBL planning to hijack aircraft. Also, during his administration--and after the embassy attacks--CIA had assets on the ground in Afghanistan, ready to take a shot at OBL. Clinton wanted "consensus" from his advisers, and because Reno (and others) suggested that OBL should be arrested, Clinton--in his own handwriting--edited the document authorizing the CIA to go after OBL, stating that he could not be killed unless it was in the course of an attempt to capture him. This made little sense to the CIA people planning the operation, nor to their Afghan tribal assets who would have carried it out.

Rumsfeld wanted to revamp the military into a more agile force. He did indeed shunt aside people who disagreed with him.

Once again, here is the exact wording of the National Intelligence Estimate's key judgment (of "high confidence") on Iraq and WMD's: "Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles." That's pretty clear and concise. And the last group of UN inspectors--the ones that pulled out in early 03--did indeed find (and destroy) the missiles that were in violation of the cease-fire agreement from the Gulf War. So other than the hard core antiwar left--and there aren't many of those types in Congress--in the wake of 9/11, who would NOT give the President war powers, based on that assessment?

Concerning Congress, the 9/11 Commission reserved its harshest criticism not for the Intelligence Community itself, but rather for Congressional oversight of intelligence--which they judged to be "dysfunctional". Darned harsh, considering several members of the 9/11 Commission were themselves former members of Congress. But it's quite instructive, IMO, that the Senate Intelligence Committee found much to criticize in the assessment of Iraq's WMD programs AFTER the invasion--but didn't raise any questions when they received and reviewed the National Intelligence Estimate BEFORE the invasion. Out here in Iowa, I think we'd compare that to closing the barn door after the cows have all gotten out.

Thanks Larry. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not a defender of the Clinton administration. Ithink that we started short changing our Intellingence community with the ending of the Soviet Union. At the time, it was billed as some sort of dividend for the ending of the Cold War. If I remember correctly,
Vice President Cheney (then Sec. of Defense) had a lot to do with cutting many military programs which were billed as dividends for the ending of the Cold War. I also think he had a lot to do with pushing for much more privatization of military functions at this time. This later paid off substantially when he moved to Halliburton.

I am sure that Iraq had WMD at one time. Maybe not when we went in, but maybe not too long before. I do think we did not allow the Weapons Inspection program to continue lone enough. I know that there are just as good arguments for otherwise. What I am getting at is I believe we could have gone further before we went in with force.

I do not have any criticism of the Intelligence Community. They did the best they could with what they had. I have found some of Mr.Tenent's defenses a little strong on the cover my butt aspect.

I remember during the first Gulf War, Sec. Baker was asked, "Why Kuwait?" He responded that this is not about Kuwait, that this is about "jobs back home" and our economy. This is the kind of straight talk we need. I can understand this and respect it. I think most Americans can as well. I wish we could get some straight talk from this administration, not from Mr. Cheney, and not from President Bush speaking at some fort to a military audience. How about he speaks to us for a change and without Mr. Rove in the background pulling strings.

Thanks again Larry for you information. At least you know what you are talking about. I am just an amateur trying to understand and sort out some truth.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

On Congressional oversight, Tenet wrote in his memoir At The Centre Of The Storm (HarperCollins) that even if CIA intelligence was bad, it was up to the politicians to somehow know it was rotten.

Col. Brown, I'm interested in how you view Scott Ritter's assessment of WMDs, and just what one should make of the Downing Street memo? Thanks, Will.

I think a lot of people have forgotten that during that summer, there was a crew of Naval aviators, along with a top secret equipped aircraft, that were being held by the Chinese. Although an administration should be able to handle more than one crisis at a time, that was a major distraction that is never brought up anymore.

The 9/11 Commission had some excellent suggestions on revamping Congressional oversight of intelligence. They suggested a joint subcommittee whose members would be responsible for oversight of the actual intelligence product and operations, rather than focusing on the budget--which is what Congress does almost exclusively.

Ed, unless I'm mistaken, Cheney was not SecDef under GHW Bush. Indeed, both the military and the intelligence community took severe cuts as a result of the end of the Cold War. In the mid-90's, the CIA was running its smallest training classes ever. (That's the program from which I graduated in the late 60's, and if the numbers I've seen are correct, they would have fallen far short of just normal attrition within the Clandestine Service.)

Will, my recollection is that Ritter was one of the people who signed off on Iraq still having tons of chem weapons when the inspectors pulled out in 97. He changed his stance prior to the invasion, although I'm not sure why. The Downing St memo is evidence, I think, of discussions within the Blair govt in London. However, to my knowledge, British intelligence never produced any official assessment that said Iraq did not have WMD's.

Based on my own experience as an analyst and supervisor of analysts, here's the way I look at it: I'm always ready to challenge the conventional wisdom, and I'm looking for people who "think outside the box" and do the same thing. But the "outside the box" thinking has to be supported by intelligence. If one of my analysts had come to me and said "Sir, I don't believe Iraq has WMD's any more," my response would have been: "OK, so make your case to me. Show me the reporting that indicates Saddam had a program to destroy, export, or otherwise get rid of those weapons."

I can give a clear example of how challenging conventional wisdom works in the intel business. At the end of his administration, President Carter had announced fairly large scale troop withdrawals from South Korea. This was based on the assessment of the threat posed by North Korea. An imagery analyst at ITAC--the Army's Intel and Threat Analysis Center--put together a presentation showing that, in his view, the threat was far more serious than the rest of the intel community believed it to be. In order to make his case, he had to convince his branch chief that his theory held water, then his division chief, then the commander of ITAC, and then the brass at the Pentagon--and ultimately, the president. His case was compelling enough that Carter cancelled the troop withdrawal. But that's because the individual in question backed up his theory with hard intelligence.

In the case of Iraq's WMD's, I've never seen anyone make a case, based on hard intelligence, that we should have known they were no longer there. That's why Tenet pointed out that his analysts reached the only conclusion they could have reached, based on the information available. You can certainly fault the lack of good intelligence to support their conclusion--I do; our collection was very weak--but I can't fault their conclusion based on what they had to work with.

Hi Larry:

I may be reading and remembering incorrectly, but everything I have seen places Dick Cheney as Sec. of Defense during the 1st Gulf War. This would be under the GHWB.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Cheney was SecDef 1989-93 under GHWB and directed the invasion of Panama and Desert Storm.

Jack's dates are correct. I was thinking Rumsfeld, who was previously SecDef under Ford. Cheney was White House chief of staff then.

Some cuts did begin under GHWB--and some changes in priority within the intel community, which we later came to regret. For example, 600 FBI counterintelligence agents were shifted from those duties to organized crime when the Soviet Union collapsed. The more serious cuts in both the IC and the military, however, came under Clinton. Cashing in the "peace dividend."