Intelligence Tells Us

I notice tonight that Homeland Security head Tom Ridge tonight tells us that the "intelligence" is very specific on those overseas flights headed here that the US cancelled for security concerns.

But isn't that intelligence tied to the other intelligence that Mr. Bush plans to have investigated (with results not due out until safely after the November election here --- but in time for Tony Blair's shot at another term as PM)?

My point is this: everytime this administration comes close to getting cornered on something they said or did, they've pointed over to George Tennent and said, "Intelligence error." But again and again, Mr. Bush makes it clear that he "relies" on that intelligence (complete faith he said just a day or two before we heard about the investigation). And everytime they tell us, "The Bogeyman is standing right over there and we have to curtail freedoms to get those bastards," they point to their strong intelligence.

It seems like you could have it one way or the other, either blame intelligence or not. But saying it's wonderful and faithful when it suits your purpose, and then blaming it for every wrong move on the other seems a tad schizoid if not downright opportunistic. It's sort of like loving your spouse on payday and loathing her/him the days s/he's broke.

I've listened and read a lot by the former intelligence pros who came together to cry foul on the way intelligence was being handled in the days before we went into Iraq. I'd venture to say they've opened my eyes wider to both how they see their kind of work and their role in how America does things. Their level of concern over how they felt this administration was playing games with what it (Bush) claimed was certifiable truths discovered through careful research unnerved me.

Look, I don't like the idea that to be a powerful country (or even a player), one seems to use spies and counterspies and all these strategies. But if we're going to have them - and I don't think they'll go poof because I think the whole idea is odd - we should use them well. If they come up with intelligence different from the given hypothesis, then the matter deserves more checking before a game plan is reached.

Everything about the Iraq War before and since suggests that the former intelligence pros are correct - that this administration wanted Iraq since before they took office, and no amount of intelligence suggesting Saddam was no longer the threat some thought, that WMDs didn't exist in RI sized warehouses, and that we weren't about to get nuked by Saddam was going to get this administration to stop from taking Iraq.

So wouldn't there have to be at least TWO investigations? Not just separate ones in the U.S. and Britain, but one to investigate the quality of the intelligence and its delivery and a second one, if the intelligence did NOT point to Iraq as destroyer of the world, to investigate how intelligence said one thing, and this administration said it said another?

By appointing this investigation, rather than having anyone else push it forward, the president gets some big advantages. He can handpick its members. He can decide when it will offer reports (important with the election 9 months away). And he can squash it like a bug - as some think he has with the 9/11 investigation - if it creeps too close to home.