No SPAM wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:

Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons
President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof


So we have problems with our intelligence being spotty. Oh really?


its not a question of being "spotty"

We have had every since the US Congress Church Commission in the
mid-1970s exposed so many CIA employees and their local agents and spies
and gutted the US' HUMINT capability worldwide. Every since very few
people would hazard working with us because they never knew when
Congress might betray them. And Congress passing asinine regulations
that the CIA could never, ever deal with anyone who had possibly done
anything wrong. The US Congress has placed such restrictions on the CIA
over the past 3 decades it's a miracle they ever got anything.

So the CIA concentrated on "national technical means" because they
couldn't concentrate on HUMINT. When you're counting USSR missiles &
tanks, you're OK. When you're trying to find and stop terrorists, you
need HUMINT.

Excellent article snipped


The CIA's lawyers convulsed in alarm. The White House legal rules for
liaison with Massoud had not addressed such pure military operations
against bin Laden. The Massoud partnership was supposed to be about
intelligence collection. Now the CIA had, in effect, provided
intelligence for a rocket attack on Derunta. The CIA was legally
complicit in Massoud's operation, the lawyers feared, and the agency had
no authority to be involved.


the issue here is not intelligence, but an unauthorized cia backed
military operation which is a different matter. Maasoud was killed
becasue his "intelligence" was not very good either.

Vince