Bureaucratic intelligence

Tim Russert held a panel discussion on Meet the Press Sunday, largely to talk about the NSA spy program. Miraculously, the two democrats on the panel, Jane Harmon and Tom Daschle agreed the spying was needed and wanted it to continue, showing they don't take their marching orders from the Democrat Underground or the Cindy Sheehan Command Center.

Bottom line, neither appeared interested in frog marches or spiteful payback, only that our intelligence gathering fits within FISA if possible, and if not, that FISA fits within our intelligence gathering. In today's world of spit-ball politics this sort of non-partisan adult-talk is breathtaking, almost comparable to seeing the ocean for the first time. Alright, almost.

Funny, we know Tom Daschle is capable of mixing it up with the best of em. Wonder if his relatively relaxed stance on the NSA program has anything to do with this little howdy hi there he received a few years back?


The panel also delved into Iraq "intellegence failures". Russert asked for opinions about comments from Paul R. Pillar, a former CIA counter-terrorism analyst, who's accused Bush of intel cherry-picking to justify war. Replied Ms. Harmon:

"He was trying to get everyone's attention. Intelligence was ignored. Yes, everyone agreed there was WMD in Iraq, but the weight of the [intelligence community's] recommendation was Saddam was contained and he wasn't going to use it. And that's the part that the administration never let us hear about."

Yes, but that same intelligence assessment originated from the community that dropped the ball on 9/11, Iran, Libya, and who had practically no assets on the ground in Iraq. And oh yeah, missed several opportunities to kill Bin Laden. Strange how they never include all the failures in the definition of intelligence failure. It's only Iraq.

In her book "Bush vs. the Beltway" Laurie Mylroie discussed Mr. Pillar. On pages 125-126, she describes his reaction to Bush's 2002 State of the Union address:

According to Pillar, Bush should not have said that "Iraq could give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists because there is no evidence of this occurring in the past". There was 'no evidence', he also asserted, "that Iraq had sponsored terrorism since the 1993 assassination attempt on former president George H.W.Bush"

Pillar seems to be of the same opinion as Richard Clarke, who also felt Clinton's 1993 cruise missile attack on Saddam's Mukhabarat headquarters permanently ended his aspirations of terrorism against America. What if they were wrong? There's plenty of evidence, albeit circumstantial, to suggest they might be.

Trusting our security to retirement countdown bureaucrats in this age of suicide terrorism is a scary thought. Large bureaucracies are like amorphous blobs feeding on the taxpayers. They always do what's best for the bureaucracy, regardless of what's best for the country, and are absolutely horrible at admitting mistakes.


2/14 corrected Mylroie quote above

NEVER MIND? 2/15/06

If a partisan like Tom Daschle won't touch the NSA program, it must be important. And if the democrats in Congress aren't willing to draw a line in the sand after a private briefing on the matter, then we're probably under a considerable threat--right now.

Republican Mike DeWine wants to shield the program:

He said he is drafting legislation that would "specifically authorize this program" by excluding it from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which established a secret court to consider government requests for wiretap warrants in anti-terrorist investigations.

Only Jay Rockefeller seems to be digging heels. He may soon find himself on a deserted island:

As for Rockefeller's bid, Hagel said: "If some kind of inquiry would be beneficial to getting a resolution to this issue, then sure, we should look at it. But if the inquiry is just some kind of a punitive inquiry that really is not focused on finding a way out of this, then I'm not so sure that I would support that."