Policy Failure, Not Intelligience Failure

From today's Washington Post, an editorial from Ashton B. Carter, co-director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project and was assistant defense secretary in the Clinton administration. He testified before the Robb-Silberman commission.

Quoth the writer:

President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.

Let's take the case of North Korea. While the commission's chapters on North Korea's nuclear program are rightly classified, the unclassified summary suggests that spies and satellites have yielded very little information about that country's nuclear weapons efforts. But what does it matter? North Korea has admitted, indeed boasted, of its growing nuclear arsenal, and the United States has done nothing to stop it. How could a few more details provided by the CIA make a difference? If you don't have a policy, intelligence is irrelevant. North Korea's runaway nuclear program is a policy failure, not an intelligence failure.

... more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26524-2005Apr4.html

that last idea needs to become a MSM meme...
If you don't have a policy, intelligence is irrelevant.


--MAB

...their own mistakes and deflecting criticism for their abuse of power and exploitations of the rights of others to further their own extremist agenda.

:evilgrin:

At BushCo, if you don't have intelligence, you're promoted.

The Cult of Mammon has enthroned the Prince of Indolence and Ignorance, Regent of Narcissism.

covert operations and other activities that if they were carried out directly by the Government would be a) cause for war; or b), politically unacceptable domestically.

The Agency has fulfilled its original purpose, and can now be dispensed with in favor of more secret and privatized spy and analysis organizations.

Geez, when is the obvious actually going to filter into the public consciousness. The "intelligence failure" issue is a red herring that obscures a scarier truth. The current U.S. leadership either doesn't know what they're doing, or even more frightening, they knew exactly what the outcome would be.

:bounce: B-) B-) B-) B-) B-) :evilfrown: :dunce: B-) B-) B-) B-) :bounce: