From the Washington Post:
"While insurgents in Iraq have placed informants inside the Iraqi government, the U.S. and Iraqi militaries, coalition contractors, and international news organizations, the United States is having serious intelligence problems in Iraq, according to sources inside and outside the U.S. government."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23204-2004Dec23.html
Our government really doesn't understand "intelligence".
Remember Bush's quote?
"I'm going to find someone that knows something about intelligence, and capable and honest and ready to do the job. And I will let you know at the appropriate time when I find such a person."
An IQ is such a precious thing!
Yeah right.
Again from the same article in the Post:
"The insurgents have good sources in the Iraqi interim government and sometimes in local U.S. and coalition [military] commands," according to Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and a former Pentagon official, who this week published a study titled "Strengthening Iraqi Military and Security Forces."
Now I can see where the insurgents would get really good information from the new interim government and from Iraqi police and military folks and that would include any coalition commands we have. And I can see that with the killing of police personnel the Iraqis have to be scared to death of trusting anybody. What I can't see is why we've done so many things to make the insurgent's job easy for them.
Why did we not lock up all weapons as we invaded? Why, rather than turn over the reins to the interim government before they were at a place where they could handle it, why didn't we support the Iraqi police and provide them with cover and security? Now I know we had joint patrols for a while and then decided that our guys were an extremely good target. So we left the Iraqi police to be a really good target by themselves. Some of them are insurgents themselves, some of them have relatives who are insurgents and some of them are afraid for their families.
We never really invested in the infrastructure needed to secure the country. We only finally did house-to-house searched in Faluja and Sadr City recently. And that, supposedly was at the bequest of the interim government, whom we put into place. Why, initially, was our only priority the oil pipeline and stuff associated with the oil, rather than a plan for leaving the country in good shape? Why did we not have some indication of how we would be received. Why did we not expect insurgents given that the makeup of the country is no surprise. The Sunnis - a minority have held the country in a brutal headlock for several decades, why wouldn't they fight like hell to avoid a Shite takeover of the government, knowing full well that paybacks are hell? And why wouldn't the people we let down over a decade ago remember that betrayal? Oh, I forgot, maybe they were judging them on the basis of American Politics. Every day our electorate wakes up and acts as if they were born yesterday.
It isn't only "intelligence" that seems to be lacking in Bush world, but stratigary as well. But, perhaps Bush is a fundie and wants a fundie in power in Iraq. When Bush first got into office, he and Putin hit it off so well. And I thought to myself, there are two soul mates if ever I saw any.
So lacking intelligence and stratigery, what possessed the military brass and Colin Powell to cave into Bushco's unreality? Not only cave in but cover for him in so many ways?
I think it is absolutely horrifying that we are having bake sales for phone cards for people who wind up at Walter Reed missing body part while Haliburton is stealing the country blind taking $10 BILLION for such an inept contracting job. I guess I just lose it when we talk about framing. Why can't we just say "support the troops - REALLY support the troops - with armor, security, and family benefits.
About the last two items, the brass is just now deciding that bases ought to be more secure and a little more careful about who they let on to the bases, and we probably are the only country in the world where a quarter of our troops on active duty have families forced to go on food stamps. Well that won't last. They won't get food stamps in the next fiscal year because of the budget crunch! But what the hell, Bush will have succeeded in closing out the New Deal as well as bankrupting the country. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
In a previous rant of mine:
Our intelligence is in disarray
and has been ever since the current idiot took office. Remember the first rattle out of the box was they fired a lot of arab interpreters because they were gay! So then they were scrambling to find interpreters. That wasn't enough juice for them that is in charge. They wanted to blame Iraq for Al Queada. It was TOO HARD to catch Osama. Especially since they had this elite troop that had to be the heros and nobody else in the frigging army would do. But ITS TOO HARD to move an elite troop around the board all the time. So they missed out on opportunities all over the board. Then they put all those people in Guantanamo Bay. Come to find out, they can't really try anybody in a civilian court cause they have screwed all the evidence. Also there are some people there that shouldn't have been there. Of course, they have now been in a prison with no Human Rights at all for almost three years now? And how much intelligence did they really get? Not enough to get Osama. Now Mr. Goss is in and he's gunning for everybody in sight. He wants to make sure everybody is on the same page, even if it is the wrong page. Cronyism is much much more better than efficiency. The loyal will be rewarded the disloyal punished. Sounds like a third rate king to me.
But everything should be all right right? We have Mr Torture is okay Gonzales in office.