Intelligence failures - Plessner

Gerry, you didn’t get back me on my critique of the Fahrenheit 911 article of yours on July 1, but I am proud of your writing a more tightly written article that at least tries to marshal facts to meet your opinion rather than pointing to Michael Moore a beacon of investigative journalism who agrees with you on disproved and distorted canards such as the Bin Laden flights and Afghan pipelines.
 
Before getting to your stronger points on Tenet and the CIA under pressure for “pro-war” intelligence, I must object to your last few paragraphs.  Though no fan of the style of the present resident of the Pentagon’s highest civilian chair (except his bravery on 9/11), you really are doing a non-sequitur from the CIA to the Pentagon with charges of a Wolfowitz independent Intel office (unsubstantiated) and Rumsfeld sign-off on Abu Gharib ( the release of records shows a clear delineation between interrogation policy and what happened with Lynddie England and her pals.  But wouldn’t you know about these things as a trained agent?).  And then you claim that led to “disastrous” military results when there is clear objective evidence that our forces achieved every objective assigned to them and that a political solution after only a year of “de-Baathing” is already happening.  And as far as mistaken efforts to enlist friends, there is not only a worthy alliance that has sacrificed alongside us, but the UN must now accept the new Iraq as “de facto” and should deal with their own failures on the growing “Oil for Food” scandal and the inability to do peacekeeping or even security on their own buildings without our help
 
One more point, on USSR as a basket case, as a political science student in the 1970s (not a secret agent), I knew that the Soviet Union was not only morally bankrupt but economically moribund.  It took a President, Reagan by name, who could act on that intelligence, to continually “push the envelope” that led to the “evil empire” to “tear down that wall”.
 
Anyhow, back to Tenet, whose “major fault was getting cozy with a president and vice president who had their own agenda”.  Tenet, by all accounts, attempted to serve his country loyally and competently and honestly throughout his intelligence career.  Ironically, he started out a staffer to
Senator Heinz (Kerry’s wife’s late husband) on the Select Committee on Intelligence.  My viewpoint would be that any appearance of coziness stands as stark contrast to the latter years of the Clinton Administration.  It seems to me that “Don’t Ask, don’t tell” was the slogan throughout his presidency, not only for gays in the military and his private life, but on the need for actionable intelligence in the post-Cold War years, and that intelligence gathering was not a priority.
 
Given the scathing and unanimous Senate committee on CIA intelligence, I must concede that Iraq intelligence was a problem. Certainly, Republican unanimity was probably given to get this report out there and over with, and probably as you said with the proviso, that the Democrats would not bring White House “pressure” or issues dealing with the Pentagon into the official report.  But you go way beyond Cheney and Rumsfeld being “pushers” to the illogical Moore conspiracy theories and I hesitate to argue with you in a rational debate on whether intelligence was “fabricated”.  In that case, I wonder not only about Tenet not quitting after his integrity was lost, but why oh why, has Colin Powell stayed around.  Maybe not only because they are loyal to the President’s agenda but actually believe that both Afghanistan and Iraq were proper courses of action, justified by the evil intent of an adversary, their violations of international law, and, by the way, righting a wrong and liberating people from tyranny.
 
My fallback position is not to argue with you about sarin shells and nuclear centrifuges and aluminum tubes.  Not even to discuss when exactly Zarqawi and other Al Queda may have established their infrastructure in Iraq.  My fallback position is not 9/11, it is rather another number, 1936.  In 1936, Britain and France, could have, should have, taken action against Germany for its violations of international law.  I am sure, in order to do so, the “national intelligence estimates” drawn up to justify invasion would have been documents driven by an agenda.  They probably would have been incorrect in many particulars.  But I don’t see that certain industrial expansion in the Ruhr could have been “dual-use” or certain divisions were not mechanized yet would be the key element.  And certainly as the Nazi apparatus fell in an invasion or a coup against Hitler, much would have been hidden – plans for a “final solution”,  blitzkrieg strategy, negotiation with Russia for Poland, etc, etc.  Maybe even feasibility of new weapons of mass destruction to save the Aryan nation from just such an invasion, much as Kaiser Germany premiered the use of chemical weapons.
 I see your line of arguments not as protective of an America that was deceived, but as true “weapons of mass distortion” as part of your role now in “counter intelligence” for a media elite that doesn’t know or care about America’s long term interests.