No Skunks Allowed - Ray McGovern at TomPaine on Senate Intel Show

[TacticalPeek]

No Skunks Allowed


Ray McGovern chaired National Intelligence Estimates during his 27-year career and had high respect for the expertise and
dedication of INR analysts. Ray is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which includes alumni from
CIA, INR, and other intelligence agencies. He is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an inner-city outreach
ministry in Washington, DC.


It was a quite a show at the Senate Intelligence Committee's worldwide threat assessment briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 24.
Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., outdid himself as damage control officer for fallout from failed intelligence.

Sen. Roberts captured the spirit when he told reporters that, although "everybody would have some second thoughts" about
the reasons for the war, he believes that Saddam Hussein posed a threat "in some ways more dangerous mass destruction]," because his leadership had deteriorated (sic). Small wonder that Roberts took pains to ensure there would
be none who might snicker at the formal briefing.

The casting was a dead giveaway. For the first time since annual threat assessment briefings by the heads of key intelligence
agencies began a decade ago, the director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was
disinvited.

Roberts and his Republican colleagues decided to preclude the possibility that some recalcitrant senator might ask why INR
was able to get it right on Iraq when everyone else was wrong. Recall that the CIA and other intelligence agencies signed on to
the worst National Intelligence Estimate in 40 years—the one issued in October 2002 with the loaded title "Iraq's Continuing
Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction." (The only near rival in infamy is the NIE of September 1962, which said that the
Soviet Union would not risk trying to put missiles in Cuba. The missiles were already en route.)

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http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10027

:evilgrin:

[alfredo]

1. They don't even pretend to be concerned about our safety.

their political future is what is important to them.