Incertonia
17-06-2004, 18:43
Today's L.A. Times has a fantastic article (http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-intel17jun17,1,2168031.story) on some of the more spectacular intelligence failures in Iraq during the buildup to war. It's a solid read, but I'll provide you with some of the details here.
Most of the human intelligence sources that were used--and this isn't limited to CIA; this involves many foreign intelligence sources as well--are turning out to be bogus or unreliable now.
Remember the taped conversations that Colin Powell referred to in his now infamous UN speech, the ones that he claimed had to do with getting rid of evidence of WMD? Well, the CIA's not so sure that's what they were talking about anymore. In fact, they still don't know what the speakers were talking about, or where they were, or even who they were. U.S. experts, for example, still have not been able to determine the meaning of three secretly taped conversations that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell played to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 in making the case for war. Investigators have been unable to identify who was speaking on the tapes or precisely what they were talking about.
There were also problems with the technical side of things as well. This example is so sad that I'll just let the Times tell it: U.S. analysts also erred in their analysis of high-altitude satellite photos, repeatedly confusing Scud missile storage places with the short, half-cylindrical sheds typically used to house poultry in Iraq. As a result, as the war neared, two teams of U.N. weapons experts acting on U.S. intelligence scrambled to search chicken coops for missiles that were not there.
"We inspected a lot of chicken farms," said a former inspector who asked not to be identified because he now works with U.S. intelligence. His U.N. team printed "Ballistic Chicken Farm Inspection Team" on 20 gray T-shirts to mark the futile hunt.
How much would those t-shirts go for on E-Bay right about now, do you think?
It's a long article, and it passes around plenty of blame, not just to CIA, but to the intelligence services of Britain, Australia, Israel, and Denmark (Denmark? Who knew?). Enjoy it.
Most of the human intelligence sources that were used--and this isn't limited to CIA; this involves many foreign intelligence sources as well--are turning out to be bogus or unreliable now.
Remember the taped conversations that Colin Powell referred to in his now infamous UN speech, the ones that he claimed had to do with getting rid of evidence of WMD? Well, the CIA's not so sure that's what they were talking about anymore. In fact, they still don't know what the speakers were talking about, or where they were, or even who they were. U.S. experts, for example, still have not been able to determine the meaning of three secretly taped conversations that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell played to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 in making the case for war. Investigators have been unable to identify who was speaking on the tapes or precisely what they were talking about.
There were also problems with the technical side of things as well. This example is so sad that I'll just let the Times tell it: U.S. analysts also erred in their analysis of high-altitude satellite photos, repeatedly confusing Scud missile storage places with the short, half-cylindrical sheds typically used to house poultry in Iraq. As a result, as the war neared, two teams of U.N. weapons experts acting on U.S. intelligence scrambled to search chicken coops for missiles that were not there.
"We inspected a lot of chicken farms," said a former inspector who asked not to be identified because he now works with U.S. intelligence. His U.N. team printed "Ballistic Chicken Farm Inspection Team" on 20 gray T-shirts to mark the futile hunt.
How much would those t-shirts go for on E-Bay right about now, do you think?
It's a long article, and it passes around plenty of blame, not just to CIA, but to the intelligence services of Britain, Australia, Israel, and Denmark (Denmark? Who knew?). Enjoy it.