Maureen Dowd: Way Off-Base about CIA?

[BurtWorm]

I thought the CIA had the goods on al Qaeda and the Cheney administration refused to hear it. I thought the CIA and State were in agreement that the Pentagon's infatuation with Chalabi was insane. I thought the CIA was far more accurate about the Iraqi WMD programs than Rumsfeld's pets in the DIA? Isn't the following excerpt from today's Dowd column 100% screwy? What's it doing in a finished issue of the NY Times?


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/opinion/29DOWD.html


Dump Cheney Now!
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 29, 2004



...

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, the ex-C.I.A. weapons sleuth used a metaphor that was perhaps inspired by Martha Stewart, comparing the C.I.A. with a lousy stockbroker.

"If I were your broker," he told Senator Jack Reed, "and you were investing on my advice . . . and at the end of the day, I said Enron was the greatest company in the world, and you had lost a substantial amount of money on it because it turned out differently, you would think I had abused you."

Certainly the C.I.A. has a lot to answer for. For a bargain price of $30 billion a year, our intelligence aces have been spectacularly off. They failed to warn us about 9/11 and missed the shame spiral of a deranged Saddam, hoodwinked by his top scientists.

They were probably relying too much on the Arabian Nights tales of Ahmad Chalabi, eager to spread the word of Saddam's imaginary nuclear-tipped weapons juggernaut because it suited his own ambitions — and that of his Pentagon pals...

[DemNoir]

1. Our poor President

Misled like the rest of us. He's a nice man really. and God fearing. The evil that is Dick Cheney has taken gods own messenger and corrupted him.

[BurtWorm]

2. That's the message I'm getting from this kind of spin.

It's not Bush's fault he's completely surrounded himself with corrupt incompetents!

[prodigal_green]

3. Ummm...

Didn't they warn him about 9-11 and didn't they say there weren't really WMD? Not being told and not listening are two very different things.

[Ivote]

5. ITS NOT BUSHES

fault, he only has a grade "C" average, don't blame him. Thats why he was chosen. He can be manipulated.

[RobinA]

4. This Seems To Be the Spin

Suddenly Kay is blaming the CIA, everybody is blaming the CIA. I just read an article in Atlantic (I think) by Jonathan Pollock (a major Iraq hawk who wrote a war-promoting book shortly before the war) now saying "we were wrong but we were duped by the CIA."

Meanwhile, little old me, reader of various lefty publications and certainly not a subscriber to little-known CIA newsletters, knew months before the war that CIA people were being quoted as having some major issues with the WMD propaganda then being spewed. And I believe that it was written about in the mainstream press that CIA analysts felt they were being pressured to cook WMD intelligance. In fact, if memory serves, there was a George Will column pooh-poohing the very NOTION that an administration would try to pressure CIA analysts on such an important issue. So it was certainly out there before the war that the CIA (and the military, for that matter) had some issues with the prevailing "wisdom" on Saddam and WMD. If *I* was aware of it, why are all these so-called experts now surprised? Didn't they look into this at the time? If not, why not?

[Beetwasher]

6. Bizzarro Universe

It's like all those stories I read in mainstream news sources about the intel community being pissed off about the misuse of intellegence and Cheney's constant trips to the CIA to pressure them into tailoring their evidence never happened. It's incredible and frightening. How can any reputable newsperson do a story about Kay's testimony and NOT mention the allegations that the data was cooked by OSP? Yet that's what's happening. They are doing the story and not even mentioning the allegations.

[priller]

7. There seems to be a concerted campaign to blame the CIA

Seems like a really bad idea to me, but then I realize they have few options.

MoDo has it wrong here and you have it right. There are many reports of CIA analysts being pressured, of Cheney himself going to the CIA to influence things, of Feith/Wolfie/et al setting up their own intelligence office in the Pentagon to funnel unfiltered info from Chalabi's people directly to Cheney, of political appointees at the CIA removing much of the qualifying language of analysts in reports to the WH, etc, etc, etc, etc.

The CIA is not blameless in this matter, but their fault is more being too eager to please the Bushies, and/or not standing up to their coercion. But the Bushies were not misled, they had a predetermined course charted out, they *KNEW* what Saddam had and only listened to intel that supported their view.

[el_gato]

8. the CIA is a fascist political organization

and closely associated with the BFEE

don't be fooled by the phoney shell game here

[0007]

11. All will be forgiven when bin Laden is captured by that superb

intelligence that Americans pay more than 30 billion per year for. I predict you'll see Tenet & junior patting each other on the butt many many time. And guess what? Ahemd Chalabi will be exonerated because he worked closely with the CIA and furnished valuable information. So now we'll see Chalabi and Tenet and junior all patting each other on the ass.

What a white wash.

[LoneStarLiberal]

9. More Manufactured Drivel

The media meme on Iraqi WMD has shifted back to the administration's favor after being against them.

My guess is that for most liberals it doesn't matter if it's the administration or the CIA: They're both viewed as being Republican bastions. The Republicans are playing on this to shift blame from Rumsfeld's in-house intelligence organization that was cooking the Iraqi intelligence and Vice President Cheney's trips to Langley to "motivate" the analysts to write up more hellfire-and-damnation reports to the CIA as a whole. Since most of what the CIA does is secretive, it's easy to demonize them.

My take on this column and all the other manufactured media outrage today is that it is just more drivel and sycophantic bullshit. It's a damned fine smokescreen that obscures the ultimate responsibility for our going to war in Iraq: The intential misleading by the Bush administration. "Clear and present danger" to "gathering threat?" Anyone? Bueller? "Possession of WMDs" to "pursuit of WMD programs activities?" Anyone? Bueller?

It's not surprising to see the media get it wrong. It's only disappointing that they are jumping on board the Good Ship Cornelius so fast.

[RobinA]

10. It Matters Hugely

to this liberal, and it should to all people, whether this is the CIA or administration's fault. Or somebody else's. There's a really big difference, implying really different solutions, if this is a case of lousy intelligence or lying by the administration.

[0007]

12. That is the 'Ship of Fools?'