Why no public comment: No CIA NIE (report of intel) on Iraq since 2004.

[salin]

This article has haunted me for several days:
http://harpers.org/sb-cia-badnews-293480283.html

“Fairy Tales”

The (lack of) intelligence underpinning Bush's Iraq policy

Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2006.
By Ken Silverstein.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein's Information Minister became the butt of a million jokes for proclaiming that American soldiers were being routed, even as U.S. troops were quickly closing in on Baghdad. “Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad,” Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf—aka Baghdad Bob—said as Saddam's end neared. “Be assured, Baghdad is safe.”

Now, on the subject of Iraq the Bush administration has roughly the same credibility as Baghdad Bob, and for similar reasons: the administration covers its ears when it gets bad news and anyone bold enough to deliver it is sent to face the firing squad. “This administration,” Bob Graham, the former Senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me, “does not seek the truth as a basis for its judgments, but tries to use intelligence to validate judgments it has already made.”

A number of current and former intelligence officials have told me that the administration's war on internal dissent has crippled the CIA's ability to provide realistic assessments from Iraq. “The system of reporting is shut down,” said one person familiar with the situation. “You can't write anything honest, only fairy tales.”

... (much more at link - please read it if you haven't already)

In short, any intel report from the CIA on Iraq that had a modicum of reality has found the author out the door or shipped off to the equivalent of Siberia - to the point where nothing gets reported/written upon which policies can be made. There has been NO NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) on Iraq since 2004, and that one was dismissed by Bush.

We already knew that military intel had been deeply compromised through a combination of purges of those who report anything that doesn't comply to Rummy's ideology, and through intense politicalization.

So with no good intelligence - how can we craft strategies that will work? How do folks on the ground do anything but react - or act blindly on assumptions crafted by higher-ups who simply create the reality (that is imagine it in their heads) upon which actions/policies/strategies are designed and then directed. FOR YEARS. How many deaths have occurred due to a blind-leading-the-blind situation in creating strategies based on limited, biased, or no intelligence information? How many more will occur?

We also learn that more than 50% of current CIA analysts have been on the job for five years or less. The only form of intelligence analysis they have experienced has been highly politicized where shaping reports on desired outcomes (that is "fitting" reports to the already crafted policies), rather than intense analysis that considers all angles and which creates complex reports upon which policies can be crafted knowing what consequences might arise based the reports.

I am generally not a huge spy fan. But I am someone who appreciates policy creation and the very critical role of gathering as much information as possible in order to consider all angles before crafting policy, and later to consider all angles in order to anticipate potential negative consequences and to design contingencies in case those consequences arise. It is my 'policy' person (though in now way related to intelligence type policy) - that is horrified at the recent past, current and future implications of this situation.

There are so many things we learn about, nearly weekly, that spike chills up and down the spine when thinking about the implications. The last one that bothered me this much was the signing statements story (750 frickin times the pres has expressed the intent to act extra-constitutionally). The NSA phone logs thing has come close - but in an odd way that one I rather anticipated. Yet this story, for some reason, strikes a different kind of fear altogether.

Not only does this admin manipulate intel to 'make their case', but they are so blinded by their ideology, ambition and greed to recognize the importance of unbiased information when making life and death, war and peace decisions. This is not incompetence, it is intentional disregard for the lives of US military, for the reputation of the United States, and for the security of the United States.

It also, when combined with the NSA stories creates an image... they don't go out and seek intel to make better policies or to 'make us safe'. They use intel exclusively to "make their cause" (initially through marketing style propaganda), they use it to forward their agendas, and they use it further their hold on power. How do I make that jump? Let's see - there have been HUGE problems in the war in Iraq - and there has been no NIE on IRaq since 2004. If they wanted to improve things - they would at least be seriously attempting to gather legitimate and serious intelligence, rather than rosy reports to be used politically back home to keep "selling the war" to the public. So if there is no view/perspective of massive data being used to formulate policies to make the country safe or to win (whatever that means these days) the war in Iraq... there really is no reason to believe that the purpose of collecting all of this data on US citizens has anything to do with keeping us safe.

I think I am spooked by the Harper's story for this single reason: If this administration believes the role of intelligence is to manipulate politically (selling to the public, winning elections) and amass power rather than to have solid analysis of facts in order to craft good policy, then what is the intention... really... behind the Data Mining and Fisaless searches? Let me rephrase the question: If the purpose of Intel and intel agencies to this administration is solely to advance the admins political power... than why are so many resources being devoted to collecting massive 'intel databases' on US citizens?

I hate that this administration and their GOP enablers in Congress and in much of the media have pushed me so far into my skepticism and deep concern, that the country will be reshaped for decades to come as a result of the eight years of Bush Cheney - and reshaped in ways that are hard to predict, and will either be a place of great repression - or one with such a solid rebuke for these ongoing power plays undertaken by Bushco that an era of reform will follow, leaving our system looking like... ?what? in the future? I don't see how our government, and its relation to its citizens, can come out of the bushjr era severely altered.