Speaking Truth to Intelligence

Sound strategy is built on accurate threat assessment. The two intelligence directors appointed today will help restore this vital foundation undermined by the distortions and manipulations of the past eight years.

President-elect Barack Obama on Friday appointed two seasoned professionals to the top intelligence posts. Dennis Blair will become the next Director for National Intelligence. He brings experience, honesty and great intelligence to a job that demands all that and more. Anyone who knows him, and I do, has no doubt that he will call it straight, never hesitate to tell the president the truth, however inconvenient, and will never, ever tell the president that something is a "slam-dunk."

Leon Panetta, who will now head the CIA, has to repair an agency abused and largely ignored by the Bush administration. As Bill Clinton's chief of staff, he was a major customer of intelligence products and knows better than most what the civilian leadership of the country needs from the agency. Blair, in introducing Panetta, spoke of his integrity. This, too, has been in short supply. There is no question that he will steer the agency away from torture and abuse. Like Blair, he has the confidence and standing to tell the president or the secretaries of state and defense when they are wrong.

We desperately need these correctives. Even as Blair and Panetta were being introduced, former Secretary of Defense William Perry predicted that the new president will face a nuclear crisis with Iran. Obama will need objective estimates of Iran's capabilities, both nuclear and missile, the ability of our military to counter these assets, judgments on the internal decision-making process of Iran and the prospects for tough diplomacy to change Iran's trajectory.

The country did not get any of this from the current administration. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his deputies manipulated the intelligence process to justify preconceived policies. The wreckage left behind includes the failure to act on intelligence of imminent attacks on America by Al Qaeda, the massive misinformation of WMD in Iraq, false claims of Niger yellowcake, forged memos and an inflated threat from Iran.

Cleaning out this stable is a Herculean task. We are lucky to have men like Blair and Panetta willing to sacrifice for the good of the nation.

Comments

[PlaceboStudman]

This is one case where innovation and technology have been a detriment to the cause, rather than a supplement to it. Simply put, we need HUMINT back on the ground, we need real people with hearts and minds listening in on real conversations, not just overhead satellite movements of large convoys of suspected terrorist groups.

I miss the days of The Cold War. Bring back James Bond!

[ThePeacemakers]

Anybody else remember this???

TV spinoff The Lone Gunmen comes to DVD with its prescient 9/11 episode
"The Lone Gunmen, the Complete Series (Fox) - Back in 2001, when The X-Files was breathing its last prime-time gasp, this oddball spinoff series hit the airwaves for 13 episodes. The three unlikely conspiracy investigators built their own little cult following with the show, still shot in Vancouver after the original fled to sunny California.
The most remarkable episode... aired just a few months before 9/11 with an incredibly prescient plot about terrorists hijacking an airliner and threatening to crash it into the World Trade Center. (NOTE: THE FLIGHTS EVEN ORIGINATED OUT OF BOSTON) Except, in this plot, the terrorists were a cabal within the U.S. government itself.
On the episode's commentary track, the creators themselves cannot believe the irony. They recall how, in the immediate hours after the event when it wasn't known who was responsible, they feared their story might have inspired the real terrorists." Canada.comm (03/28/05)

[Proletarian101]

Said of Leon Panetta "As Bill Clinton's chief of staff, he was a major customer of intelligence products and knows better than most what the civilian leadership of the country needs from the agency."

This is an absurd argument. This would be like saying that since I great user of Microsoft product, more that most, I would be a great CEO of Microsoft. Just because you use the information that was provided by an agency doesn't mean you know how to get it.

[LizM]

So, what do you think of the rest of Joe's arguments in favor of these nominations and do you have better choices in mind? I love to hear all about them.

[Berettasskeeter]

How about any of the senior intelligence people within the CIA or DIA? Men/women with much more experience in the gathering, collating, and dissemination of intelligence than Panetta.
Semper fi

[huskers16]

So if Panetta comes in and guts intel how does that help this country? Remember, one of Clinton's first acts was to gut the HUMINT (Human Intelligence) corp out of the CIA. This caused a lot of "termination" of CIA undercover agents around the world, not to mention causing a stem of human intelligence from around the world.

If we end up with another terror attack on US soil because we lose our intel sources.......the next president will not be too blame, even if it is on his watch.

My father is a retired Lt. Colonel intelligence officer of the Air Force. He witnessed all of this during the 90's.

[magen]

Hopefully we'll have some "reality based" intelligence from now on.

[celticjag]

I wonder why you did not mention Adm. Blair's role, if any , in the church massacres in East Timor during 1999. If he was involved in any way, he should not be part of our government. If he wasn't involved, then hopefully the record could be set straight, so that there is no cloud hanging over his appointmemt.

[moAb]

Good luck to these appontees and others who will attempt to redesign/ressurect the CIA.
We need HUMINT and we need a lot of it fast.

[pablitoj]

Cirincione does not mention Blair's reported complicity in E Timor massacres. We need to know (a) are these reports accurate? and ( b) why does the Obama team not consider them disqualifying? And Cirincione: does your endorsement mean you endorse the massacres? If not, why do you not mention them?

[Snuffleupagus]

The more you try to dig into the history and politics of our CIA, the creepier it gets.
This is a great article on the politicization of intelligence, and on how the old guys just never seem to go away.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11607

[LizM]

...a Herculean task, indeed! I was wondering when a reference to the Augean stables would pop up again and I'm not at all surprised to hear it from you. I don't mind saying that it brought a wide and lasting smile to my face.

Thanks for posting your thoughts here on these latest nominations - two of the most critical portfolios in the new administration. After eight years of neocon-inspired hubris and incompetence, the team that President-elect Obama is putting together is almost too good to be true. One thing is for certain, if this team can't manage to reverse the course of the ship of state, then no one can.