HerbEly

Two Major Books on Intelligence Failures

This morning’s WaPo Michael F. Scheuer’s review review of two significant books on intelligence”

• THE CIA AND CONGRESS: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy By David M. Barrett
• BURN BEFORE READING Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence By Stansfield Turner

(Michael F. Scheuer was a member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service and the first chief of its unit on Osama bin Laden. He is the previously anonymous author of "Imperial Hubris" and "Through Our Enemies' Eyes.")

In two telling paragraphs, makes it clear that our recent failures are due to lack of integrity in leadership.

The October 2002 NIE: A Critical Reading

While we've been over this ground before, I advise a look at Alan Reynold's close reading of the CIA's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs.

Reynold's wishes that Congress and the Administration had read the report more critcally. As the old Virginia proverb goes: "Hindsight is better than foresight by a darnsight."

NOTE: This posting linked with Outside the Beltway for 11/26/05

Wolf – Warning Weariness, Part III

Last week the Washington Times questioned the scare stories about the coming Avian Flu epidemic. Today's WaPo has review of two books about Avian Flu. One of them warns that "the wolf is coming" the other says that it isn't.

Cheney Implicitly Points His Finger at Career Intelligence Officers

Vice President Cheney delivered his remarks on prewar intelligence yesterday. As I read them, I experienced cognitive dissonance. I heard Cheney speak when he was Secretary of Defense. He is so knowledgeable that I do not believe he would be mistaken or tell an outright lie. Yet his remarks contradict what I believe to be the truth about prewar intelligence.

Maybe a careful parsing of his remarks will resolve the contradictions.

The L.A. Times Fills in Details of the “Curveball” Story

Bob Drogin and John Goetz provide a detailed account of how the intelligence community was mislead by an Iraqi source known as “Curveball.” These details add to the main story of how US intelligence was used to justify starting the war with Iraq.

The main story has been reported by Walter Pincus in the WaPo and in this blog on July 13, 2004. The main story is this:
• US Intelligence assessments that Iraq was building mobile biological agents labs were used to justify an attack on Iraq
• These assessments were based primarily on reports from an Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball”
• Curveball was an unreliable source
• Top-level officials in the CIA and the administration ignored warning’s about Curveball’s unreliability.

Drogin and Goetz add significant details:

The Senility Prayer

The Senility Prayer
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do,
and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Don't know where this came from, but thanks to Adrienne.

Wolf – Warning Weariness, Part II

This morning Michael Fumento offers a debunking of the coming Avian Flu crises. His excellent story reminded me of my earlier posting on how the public tires of and then ignores continuous alarms of coming crises. Eventually, just like the village elders in the fable, the public gets tired of the little boy who always cries: The wolf is coming!”. Some times the wolf, like Katrina, does come and then we are sorry that we did not heed the warning. Other times the warning comes from a “little boy” just trying to attract attention, just as in Aesop’s fable. In some cases the warning may be genuine, but we are sure that politicians, pundits, and fund-raisers are just trying to attract attention. This is true for the coming wolves known as:
• Global warming
• Social Security
• Medicate funding
• Energy shortages
And now the Avian flu crises.

Before we yield to panic, lets look at some of Fumento’s skepticism about the danger:

'THE indication is that we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus," warned the nation's top health official. "The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans . . . " But the topic wasn't an impending "bird flu"pandemic — it was 1976, and the prediction for the "swine flu" fell 9,999,999 deaths short.

That's something to remember as we endure the current hysteria. Another is that we've been here before with the same virus everybody is now squawking about: Avian influenza type H5N1 hit Hong Kong in 1997. Typical headline: "Race to Prevent World Epidemic of Lethal 'Bird Flu.' " (I published an anti-hysteria piece then, too — and got condemned as "irresponsible.")

The world death toll from that "wave?" Six.

But this time it's for real, right? Predictions of worldwide deaths range from a U.N. official's "5 million to 150 million" (Translation: We're clueless) to one U.S. health official's estimate of 180 million to 360 million, while ABC News sent feathers flying saying there'd be a billion dead.
…
Ersatz expert and former Newsday reporter Laurie Garrett, now with the Council on Foreign Relations, claims that unlike our annual flus, which usually kill indirectly by exposing the body to secondary (and treatable) bacterial infections, Spanish flu "was a direct killer" and therefore, "Had antibiotics existed, they may not have been much help."

Wrong.

"Even in 1918 there was a window of opportunity so that if they had drugs they could have made a major difference," one of the nation's top virologists, Dr. Frederick G. Hayden of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville told me. "It would have been susceptible to both antibiotics and antivirals."

Register with the NY Post and give Fumento a reading. We need to be prepared – but should not be pushed into a panic, spending our tax dollars needlessly, and then be surprised by a different wolf.

Proverbs 31:11, a Challenge to Husbands

The New American Bible translation of Yesterday’s reading from Proverbs 31 provided a new perspective. (I’d quote it here, but as Amy Welborn has noted, our conference of Bishops has imposed copyright restrictions that make that impossible. Thanks to Bible Gateway I was able to find a translation that leads to the same interpretation.)

Proverbs 31:10-31 is the oft-quoted praise of the good wife. While we love to quote it, I wonder how many of us have reflected on this Prv31:11a ”The heart of her husband confideth in her,”. The NAB translation speaks of the husband “entrusting” his heart.

These translations led me to a question: How many husbands heard this passage, wished that their wives were a bit different, yet have not entrusted their hearts to their wives?

Consider, if I may go in a seemingly odd direction, the plight of Peter Parker in the Spiderman film series. Peter finds that he has a superpower but hides it from Mary Jane, played in the films by Kirsten Dunst. His refusal to be open with her about his true character causes him spiritual difficulties. He tries to be the Good Samaritan, burns out from exhaustion and almost loses Mary Jane, the one person who can help him find how to use his gifts. (Losing Mary Jane as played by Kirsten Dunst would be a real spiritual failure.) Like most of us, he gets better than he deserves from her – once he is able to entrust his heart to her.

Husbands, next time we read Proverbs 31, lets think of it as a challenge to us. Open and honest communication - in speaking as well as listening – is a key to marital spirituality.

Teacher as Truth Teller, Part II

Over the past decade, I’ve often admired the op ed columns of Alexandria, VA High School English Teacher Patrick Welsh. He is practicing one of Gregory Pierce's ten disciplines of Worplace Spirituality, making the system work for it's intended purpose. In his WaPo column yesterday he writes

Search One Level Deeper

This morning Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus have a good, but limited, article on on the administration's (and congress's) use of pre-war intelligence. To find out what went wrong, the Senate will have to look one level deeper and ask why the intelligence community overlooked serious doubts. For clues as to doubts about WMD start here. For clues as to doubts about the Al Qeada - Iraq link, start here.

More later. Today is a busy day for us.