Somehow, I knew Ryan would read my last in the wrong light.
When an organization like the CSIS calls for a restructuring of analysis elements within the US intelligence services, and a refocus on how the US command structure uses and implements that intelligence, as soon as 3 months after "proof" or lack thereof begins to come forward after the invasion... it does NOT show a functional or responsive series of procedures in how the US intelligence services worked prior to Mar. '03.
For the Administration, and specifically Cheney and Rumsfeld to dedicate 100% trust and faith in an agency like the CIA, after voicing (loudly and publicly) their distrust of the CIA and its abilities from Sept of 01 to Dec of 02, with no measurable or appreciable change in policy or procedure, seems "questionable" to me at the very best. Add to this the fact the NIE that was the Congress's PRIMARY source of data for the lead-up to the invasion was "whipped up" in 1/4 of the time it normally takes write one of these and was not substantiated by any other agency other than the already questionable CIA (according to Ryan, Cheney and Rumsfeld), foreign or domestic.
All of this filters back to my ORIGINAL (read 7 years ago) argument that the US made its biggest mistake by lumping all its proverbial "eggs" into the WMD basket. Even attempts by GOP pundits to justify the policy based on non-compliance issues (and I am more than willing to give Rush his kudos here... it was ALWAYS a focus of his to point out 12 years of non-compliance with binding UN resolutions) fell on deaf Cabinet ears. The only "compliance" issues that the Administration was concerned with were the weapons inspectors. No one from the White House called of "solutions" to issues like "Food for Oil" or the calls for justice from the Kurds or questions about human rights abuses within the country... they were sick of "re-solutions", but only "solutions" concerning WMDs were discussed. THAT was what they were focused on... chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability within the Republic of Iraq.
Why?
Another aspect of the "intelligence" question that hasn't been discussed is the post-invasion intelligence that was (in my opinion) IGNORED by the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld concerning how best to secure Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Both Powell and Rice, from the very beginning, pushed for a large, and varied, composite ground force of mainly infantry and MP elements that could maintain a "corner by corner" presence in the most troubled and hostile areas of Iraq... but these opinions were ignored (with little to no reason given) in favor of the "light foot-print" approach of the VP and SecDef... who offered no substantial evidence to support their position other than breifs filed from DoJ and DIA lackey-desks! Rice and Powell had the Joint Chiefs, the Sec of Army, Annapolis, Quantico, CSIS (as you can see from their website listed previously) and "Stormin' Norman" himself... but no serious consideration was made of these strategies.
Why?
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I wanted to note that your emphasis on the "yellow cake" and the Iraq NIE being "whipped up" is undoubtedly from section 12 of the Frontline peice. That section is perhaps the most flawed and bias portion of this so called documentary. They offer a highly partisan FLA Senator, no one else on the INTEL commitee, as a witness and they choose to focus on the MOST vulnerable part of Tenents "Whitepaper", the yelow cake and COMPLETELY disregard the chem & bio weapons aspect even though Bush had repeatedly referred to them in his public addresses.
Complete bile, and you should be using MORE then just PBS as your source my friend ...
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