Let me see if I’ve got this straight. We are about to attack Iraq because our intelligence forces have determined that Saddam Hussein is an immediate, potential, possible threat to our national security if he ever finds Ollie North’s phone number or gets help from one of our old enemies like Iran, Russia, China, or God only knows who else might have nuclear weapons and can help him leapfrog development. Then, once he gets nukes he will immediately use them on us, right?
These are the same intelligence forces that, after fifty years of spying and counter-spying with the Russians, failed to notice that Russia was going broke. And they couldn’t guess this even after Russian diplomats told us they were going to deliver us the worst blow possible by taking away our enemy.
These are the same intelligence forces that have been at the forefront of the War on Drugs and, with the help of local police, have filled our jails with recreational drug users who can’t afford bail or high priced attorneys to get them off. The same intelligence that is now costing just about every city in the nation a small fortune in order to increase its jail capacity and tax its citizens to keep these dangerous felons off the street. The same intelligence that led to the destruction of Panama City and the death of more than 10,000 civilians in order to arrest one kingpin drug lord who used to be our informant. And the money from the amount of drugs consumed in our nation still accounts for more than one third of the Gross Domestic Product.
These are the same intelligence forces who haven’t been able to locate Osama bin Laden or the Atlanta bomber who hid out in our own North Carolina hills. The same forces that swarmed a small North Carolina town and the surrounding woodland after first falsely accusing the hero who found a suitcase bomb at the Olympics and steered many people away from danger. A false arrest that cost us a small fortune in compensatory damages.
These are the same intelligence forces that obviously let us down on September 11, 2001 and are now under investigation insofar as who knew what before that horrible day.
These are the same intelligence forces that haven’t got a clue of who mailed anthrax to congressmen and people in New York City and Florida, although they do have one “person of interest” who works within one of our own military stockpiles of this weapon of mass destruction.
These are the same intelligence forces that spent months searching for Chandra Levy and twice combed the park her home computer showed to be the last web site she visited. It finally took a turtle hunter’s dog to find Chandra’s body.
What does that tell you folks? Isn’t it obvious that we should send that dog to Afghanistan and Pakistan to look for Osama bin Laden? This nameless dog has a better track record than our multi-gazillion dollar FBI and CIA, or any of the other twenty-one super sleuth departments of government.
And now, we are suddenly convinced that these same intelligence forces are right, that they have reformed, gained competence, done a complete about face, and are now capable of discerning what’s going on in Iraq and the subtle nuances of what’s going on in Saddam Hussein’s mind. Have we lost our common sense? Are we crazy?
At the very least, it seems we should be putting the turtle hunter’s dog together with our drug sniffing K-9 corps to share information on how to find evildoers. I’m surprised George Bush hasn’t thought of this.
Our President tells us that the problem lies in sharing information, that the entire intelligence network needs to be reorganized under the Office of Homeland Security with him in charge, of course. He’s been pushing this idea very hard since some in Congress, the public, and families of World Trade Center victims started asking who knew what before September 11, 2001 and why our intelligence was so obviously lacking and inept.
There are too many questions to be answered, too many loose ends, too many ghosts and diversions, especially while our president has somehow decided that Saddam Hussein is the next target to attack. It makes one wonder what was wrong with the old system and whether a change isn’t possibly just another diversion and expensive wasteful administratium effort.
Here’s the way the government’s informational system is presently structured:
Looks pretty well organized to me with plenty of possible information sharing through George Tenet as the Director of Central Intelligence. Do you see any reason why they couldn’t all interact with one another with Tenet as the clearing house?
I’ve got some concern about the “Community Management Staff” and the “National Intelligence Council” at the center, but lets leave that aside for the moment.
During the presidential campaign of 2000, wasn’t one of George W. Bush’s strong points supposed to be the idea that he was a great mediator? Didn’t he claim to be able to get people to set petty jealousies aside, overlook party differences, and work together for the common good? Do you have to restructure the whole shebang in order to do that?
I’m beginning to get an Orwellian feeling that one of the ways to recognize that you are living under tyranny is that your dictator appears on the airwaves every day selling you his ideas and threatening you with all sorts of evil things that will happen if you don’t follow along. Never before have we had a president that was such a media hog.
Talking about Iraq’s threat today, October 9, 2002, news has it that George Tenet, Director of the CIA and Central Intelligence (above), has written Congress telling our representatives that “it is unlikely such an attack by Saddam would come unless he felt cornered” which is precisely what we are doing to him.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”