↑ Grab this Headline Animator

SNAFU for U.S. Intelligence Community

The release in March this year of the report of "The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" was heralded as an important first step in helping the intelligence community to make the necessary changes to deal with critical security challenges, such as the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and international terrorism.



It is critical and urgent that lessons from the WMD intelligence failures over Iraq are completed if we are to avoid similar mistakes leading to a far greater and all-consuming conflict with Iran in the foreseeable future.



But the Commission failed in its job, according to a new BASIC report, See, Speak, and Hear No Incompetence: An Analysis of the Findings of The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.



According to the author, BASIC Senior Analyst David Isenberg:



"The framework in which U.S. intelligence operates is deficient. A structure that allows intelligence analysts to prepare estimates based on unverified assumptions and nonexistent evidence is, in reality, a rotting edifice, as opposed to the solid foundation needed to deal with twenty-first century challenges."



The Commission's recommendations were not particularly impressive. Most involved initiatives that were already in the works before the Commission released its report, and doubts remain about how effective they will be. Had all the proposed reorganizations been in place four years ago, there is nothing to suggest that the intelligence agencies or the Bush administration would have reached more accurate conclusions.



The BASIC report finds that the Commission avoided dealing with the 'politics of intelligence': a problem that is likely to continue to fester. This means that U.S. policymakers will again make statements that are neither factually based or in tune with what the intelligence community is actually saying. Indeed, the Washington Post reported on Aug. 2, 2005, that a new National Intelligence Estimate projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years. This is in sharp contrast with the forceful public statements by the White House on Iran's nuclear program, suggesting that the politicization of intelligence is continuing much as before.



The full report is available at http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/05WMD.pdf.



For further details or an interview with the author, David Isenberg, contact:

Phone: +1 202-546-8055, ext. 103

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

---

This article has been robotically scanned and tagged by Prnewsnow with the following search tags. No human manipulation of these tags take place.
| Girls | Hand Hand | hand hand ministries |

---

4908 readers online...

, Local News