Node Of Evil - Fair And Balanced Reporting

Monday, May 05, 2003

 
Seymour Hersh is on point per usual. His article in the New Yorker's "Fact" section this week details the intelligence split between the DIA, the CIA, and the Pentagon (which did its own intelligence analysis) over Iraqi NBC weapons. Both the CIA and the DIA came to the conclusion that Iraq didn't have much in the way of NBC capabilities, while the Pentagon assumed that Iraq had these weapons despite the evidence to the contrary. The Pentagon analysts argued that the CIA and DIA didn't give enough weight to defector's testimony and that the CIA and DIA were missing obvious signs of Iraqi NBC capabilities. While the jury is still out on whether or not Iraq has these weapons, there are a number of pieces of intelligence which indicate that they don't, and much of the evidence provided by the Bush administration to justify the war has been proven wrong. Hersh details some of these cases, and he also investigates the philosophy behind the Pentagon's thinking. This story is interesting in light of the recent debacle over PATRIOT II (a.k.a the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003), which is still in draft form. That proposal contains, among other things, provisions which expand the Pentagon's ability to collect its own intelligence. Judging from Hersh's article and this recent incident, it's safe to say that the Pentagon is winning the intelligence war, even though they have yet to be proven right in Iraq.

Andrew 11:55 AM : |

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