A Different Kind of Intelligence Failure
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 04-17-2004 - 8:45pm |
April 17, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A Different Kind of Intelligence Failure
By ADLAI E. STEVENSON III
CHICAGO — Intelligence failures are to blame, so we are told, for the tragedy of 9/11 and the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq. If the Bush administration had heeded its intelligence agencies, say its opponents, it might have prevented the 9/11 attacks and avoided its mishaps in Iraq. Administration officials, meanwhile, say that their intelligence was either not accurate or not "actionable." This finger-pointing reflects misconceptions about the nature of intelligence — and suggests an intelligence failure of a different sort.
If one looks closely enough, there is generally a chance to see what lies ahead. For instance, shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, I trailed Israel's troops into the West Bank and Golan Heights and visited a Palestinian refugee camp. Ten years later I returned. By then — especially after Israel announced its plans to build settlements in the West Bank — anyone with experience in the region could foresee the dangers to come.
When I was in the Senate, I conducted a study of terrorism, which concluded in 1979 with predictions of "spectacular acts of disruption and destruction" in the United States and proposals for preventing them. These recommendations required no use of foreign intelligence. Similarly, the chaos in Iraq should come as no surprise to anyone with knowledge of Iraq, a quasi-state of tribes, religions, sects, ethnicities and foreign interests carved from the carcass of the Ottoman Empire.
Foreign intelligence supports foreign policy. Its priorities are determined by policy makers. Sometimes the products of foreign intelligence are tailored to fit the preconceptions of policy makers. Intelligence is often flawed. The intelligence agencies have conflicting and overlapping missions, lack central responsibility and are overwhelmed with information, much of it technical. It requires "production" — often without the necessary regional specialists and linguists.
Investigating the Iran intelligence failure in the late 1970's, I learned that the C.I.A. had no analyst who spoke Farsi. The agencies rely on foreign intelligence services, which support the policies of their own governments.
Foreign policy in the Bush administration reflects a lack of experience in the real world away from a Washington overrun with armchair polemicists and think-tank ideologues. Too many inhabitants of this world have no experience in the military, where one learns to expect the unexpected, or in international finance, where America's vulnerability also resides. This White House is well known for its hostility to curiosity and intellectual debate.
After all, terrorism is not a phenomenon of recent origin. Gavrilo Princip, the Serb nationalist who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, did not expect his gunshot to bring about the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He expected only a reaction — and the empire's reaction led to World War I and its own downfall. The United States government's reaction to the attacks of 9/11 could end up inflicting great damage on America.
The Bush administration demonstrates the point. One pre-emptive war against the dictator of a desert quasi-state crippled by international sanctions has stretched the American military thin. The United States is widely perceived to be waging war against Islam in the Middle East, a perception reinforced by the president's decision this week to support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and his settlement plan.
Meanwhile, the dollar — a barometer of confidence in the American economy and polity — has sunk against other currencies. In Spain, Argentina, Germany, South Korea and Pakistan, candidates win public office by denouncing or distancing themselves from the Bush administration. This record owes nothing to failures of intelligence.
Studies have recommended reforms of the intelligence community. But reform does not change the limited nature and function of intelligence. There is no substitute for the pragmatic intelligence of policy makers acquired from history and experience in the real world — and the courage to act on it.
Before 9/11, neoconservatives like Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Vice President Dick Cheney inhabited a world of contending great powers in which force and technology were transcendent. Terrorists armed with box cutters — and now Iraqis resisting the occupation — have exploded their fantasy. The failures of the Bush administration are not those of foreign intelligence but of a cerebral sort of intelligence.
Adlai E. Stevenson III is a former United States senator from Illinois.

Pages
We have lost prestige, we have lost power and we have lost any sort of reputation we may have once had as a moral force. Could we lose still more? I think so and don't need political pundits to try to spin it any other way. Fred Thompson (is this the actor/former Republican senator?) sees it one way. Fine. It's his opinion (wonder if he'd go fight in Iraq on the long hard slog to victory--probably not). I have a different one. And if it's any consolation I hope I'm wrong about the mess that was started in Iraq and how it's likely to end. But I will not stop speaking out about that mess and my concern.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Rumsfeld has a chronic problem with OTM/OTM (on the mind/out the mouth). At the beginning of 2003 when he was antagonizing our former allies left and right, I thought "give that man a muzzle!" I think his "fungible" comment was more of a Freudian slip than a one time unfortunate choice of words. It didn't need Kerry or any other presidential candidate to make Rummy look bad. He can manage that all by himself. Frankly, I think he's made some colossal errors and should tender his resignation but that's not likely to happen.
In July of 2003, George W. Bush said to reporters, "There are some that feel like if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that is the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on." I slipped up on the date, my son had just gotten back two weeks earlier but Bush's comment still hit me like a ton of bricks. My son brought home his goggles from Iraq--the lenses were literally sand blasted, as he had been. I saw the strain in his face and the pictures he took of the places he'd been. He's just one of the troops who will never forget, and neither will I. George has a lot to answer for and that comment was about as dumb as they come from a man who never served in active duty, much less in a combat zone.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Osama Ben Laden has been quoted as saying that America is weak willed, that all we have to do is bloody them some and they will run. This is what they think of us, partially becauae we lost a war we could have easily won militarily, and because we have been weak since then when we have been attacked by terrorists. The only thing they are going to understand is if we finally stand up and prove that we are not weak. This will not be done overnight, but once it is, we will be safer.
You didn't answer my earlier question. Did you actually hear President Bush make that statement, or did you hear about it in the press afterward? I am interested in knowing, because I actually heard him say it and it wasn't as dramatic as it was reported.
Thought
There are always two sides to every, I think your statement is correct. Here's another article:
BAGHDAD, Iraq--Hussein Subhi, 22, just got back from Fallujah. Polite and soft-spoken, he is still awed at the memory of a 10-year-old boy with a Kalashnikov in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other, fighting an American tank.
"He was only 10," Subhi says, "but he was a man."
Subhi is from Hurriya, a Shiite slum with a sizeable Sunni minority. Mountains of rotting garbage choke the alleys where children play. Sewage still floods many streets, a testament to both Saddam-era neglect and the failures of the American-led reconstruction effort. Neighborhoods like this bore the brunt of Saddam Hussein's anti-Shiite policies. Yet people here are rallying to Fallujah, a city full of former members of Saddam's Mukhabarat and Republican Guard, both of which joined in the brutal suppression of Shiites under the Baath regime.
"They were counting on a Sunni-Shiite split in Iraq, but we are one hand," Subhi says. "We will be victorious, God willing."
The American attack on Fallujah has awakened a newly militant nationalism among Shiites, now eager to fight the U.S.-led occupation, based on Muslim religious identity and feelings of Arab nationalism.
"Don't underestimate nationalism," says Wamidh Nadhmi, a professor of political science at Baghdad University. "And don't exaggerate Shiite-Sunni differences, but remember that they are both Arabs. There is no religion called Shiism and no religion called Sunnism. They are both Muslims."
Subhi went with a convoy of 22 young men, driving six trucks and four cars full of donations. None had ever been to Fallujah -- ordinarily about an hour's drive away -- in their lives. Subhi wanted to join the Fallujans in fighting American forces.
Once-friendly Shiite neighborhoods here now blame the American-led occupation government for failing to bring back electricity, clean water and jobs. "From the beginning, we supported the liberation of Iraq by Americans," says an unemployed market porter from the Shiite slum of Sadr City who chose to give his name as Abu Ali, father of the Shiite martyr Ali. Ali was disappointed, then angry he could find no job in Iraq's new, Shiite-friendly government.
"Bremer, at the beginning, was a brother," says Ali, leaning against a sack of grain in Sadr City's Jamila Wholesale Market. "But now he is worse than Saddam. Saddam said about us that we are a mob. And Bremer said the same thing -- he said that we are criminals."
Ali was reacting to U.S. authorities' arrest warrant against Moqtada Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army has been battling coalition forces ever since the U.S. Army padlocked his newspaper on March 28. Like many moderate Shiites, Ali is not a follower of Sadr, but he supports Sadr's opposition to American forces.
"The contacts between Moqtada Sadr and the Fallujah resistance are not as significant as the sympathy between the Shiites and the people of Fallujah," says Adnan al-Janabi, sheikh of the powerful Janabi tribe, which like many large Iraqi tribes contains both Shiite and Sunni members. "And if it moves beyond sympathy -- if the Americans continue to make more mistakes, for example if they attack Najaf -- probably they will create a real organization between the Shiites of Najaf and the Sunnis."
Sadr has capitalized on the nationalist feelings aroused by the attack on Fallujah. "America was fighting what it called the Sunni Triangle, so that it wouldn't receive help from its Shiite brothers in other areas," reads one flyer circulating in Shiite neighborhoods. "But Arab identity, and feelings of religious and nationalist responsibility, filled Sayyid Moqtada Sadr and his righteous fellow clerics to the core."
Nevertheless, in Shiite slums, it is Fallujah, more than Sadr himself, which is the rallying cry. "This is for Fallujah," says Ali Sa'addoun Abadi, picking up a packet of cotton pads from a pile heaped on the floor of his tiny storefront on busy Hurriya Street. "They are Iraqis -- there is no difference between Shiites and Sunnis. We are fighting the Americans."
According to Abadi, about 200 people donated a total of roughly 1 million Iraqi dinars -- about $700, in increments of about $3.50 each. "Donations from the people of Street 39 to the mujahideen," reads one packet of grubby bills in small denominations.
U.S. military commanders have claimed that some 700 Iraqis killed in Fallujah were Sunni "insurgents." Arab satellite channels have been beaming footage of dead and injured women and children since the conflict began.
Fallujah's refugees are pouring into Baghdad, bringing tales of carnage. "I saw it with my own eyes: they shelled all of Fallujah," says Subhi, collapsing into an armchair, exhausted after his return journey. He and other from his neighborhood brought about 400 refugees back with them. "Stores, houses -- they shelled indiscriminately."
After they distributed the donations, passing out medicine and food, Subhi and the other young men went to the mujahideen and asked if they could join the fight against American troops. The Fallujans turned them down. "They said we were their guests," says Subhi. "They told us they had enough fighters to achieve victory."
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=9384ee3ba6fe3e8d4535443108da081a
The lesson that Vietnam holds for Iraq, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that you cannot build a democracy while conducting a war against guerilla tactics. There are too many times when civilian populations get dragged in and hurt and there go the "hearts and minds" of those you're trying to win. Nor can a foreign power select a government that will have credibility for those it's to govern. So it's hard to see how Iraq is going to be different. Those who compare Iraq to Vietnam have different motives. The terrorists want to see us lose our nerve and withdraw. Some politicians are looking to further their own agendas. And some people like me, remember the carnage and want desperately to avoid a replay. The fact that there are different reasons for the comparison does NOT keep that comparison from being valid.
I think the war in Afghanistan was a strong indication that we are not weak and willing to be coerced. It will be dicey enough to make Afghanistan work--we had valid reasons for retaliating there but the country has managed to defeat the purposes of both colonial Britain and the USSR. Too bad this administration didn't know when to let well enough alone. There is wisdom in the saying "Pick your battles carefully". If you look at the lot in power, only Colin Powell served during Vietnam. The others watched from the sidelines.
I don't watch much television so I must have read Bush's "Bring it on" comment in the newspaper or heard it on the radio--not exactly high drama either way. I submit that the fact that it made no particular impression on you may be a function of your lack of personal involvement and your willingness to see Bush in the best possible light.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Rummy is so good their putting his words to music. It's poetry they say.
<>
The idea of victory and surrender disturbs me; we need a win/win outcome. IMO, we are a superpower and should not be intent upon defeating the Iraqis--we only need to bring a state of security so they can take over their own country. It is possible that the Muslim nations will step up and take charge of the situation. They are meeting in Kuala Lumpur to discuss Isreal and Iraq. See excerpt below:
<
Foreign Minister Kasuri will reiterate Pakistan's support for political independence, unity, integrity and right of the people to achieve their own destiny and form of governance. He will also reiterate the need for control of Iraqi people over their natural resources as well as respect for the religious and cultural traditions of Iraqis and the sanctity of their holy places.>>
Therefore, the comparison with Vietnam is useless and inappropriate. During Vietnam it was the USSR vs US struggling for dominance; we were already at logerheads. This is not the case today, US reigns supreme; however, if Bush is not receptive to the offer from the Muslim nations (probably through the UN) we will end up in a "clash of civilizations". We are in a very precarious position currently despite our military power.
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en62066&F_catID=&f_type=source
Pages