NSA Director Implies ISIL Intel Estimates Could Have Been Better

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/nsa-director-implies-isil-intel-estimates-could-have-been-better/



NSA Director Implies ISIL Intel Estimates Could Have Been Better
By Colin Clark on September 18, 2014 at 6:28 PM

WASHINGTON: How well did the American Intelligence Community do in its most fundamental job: providing strategic warning of war and major strategic events to the president when it came to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ISIL’s invasion of Iraq?

The heads of the Central Intelligence, Defense Intelligence, National Geospatial Intelligence and National Security agencies claimed today that they got Ukraine right, tracking the buildup of Russian forces and advising the president of the possibilities the movements and compositions of those forces offered Vladimir Putin. What they did not know, they conceded unabashedly, was what Putin intended to do with those forces.

“We did give very good strategic warning,” NGA Director Letitia Long, said pointing to estimates of Russian capabilities and movement of forces. “We do our best to lay out the options lay out the possibilities. Unambiguous warning would equal clairvoyance and that’s not what we do.”

But their estimates of ISIL’s actions came in for some questioning by no less than the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Mike Rogers.

[CJCRANE]

1. Russia didn't post their intentions on social media

but ISIS did.

Yet somehow we had better intelligence on the former.

Plus, there's a clue in the name. Didn't anyone think to ask:

Gee, I wonder if they are planning to set up an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria?