The quote in the title comes from a very informative document that you can read here:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=paul_wolfowitzThere is a good reason why Paul Wolfowitz has no use for the CIA or the US Intelligence Community. It has to do with the word they share in common.
Intelligence , as in something that is gathered from a study of the facts. Something that has some basis in reality. Facts just get in the way of people like Wolfowitz, who make up their minds what they want to do, and then make up excuses why they have to do it.
The document above is a handy resource with links to many sources about things said and done by and about Paul Wolfowitz. I decided to put on my hip boots and wade into Wolfowitz’s career in political propaganda, because something about the recent Iran NIE bashing maneuver coordinated by the New York Times and Washington Post reminds me of the run up to the war with Iraq.
Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz is ready to invade Iraq. While Tenet and others worry about Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, Wolfowitz wants to get on with the
Project for the New American Century ---you know, liberating oil that was under the control of brown people. When the CIA and FBI fails to get on board his theories that Saddam blew up the WTC in 1993 "he said something derisive about how I shouldn’t believe the CIA and FBI, that they’ve been wrong."
After 9/11, Dept. Defense Sect. Wolfowitz is commissioned by Rumfeld to set up the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, which picks and chooses which intelligence it likes.
Critics claim that its members manipulate and distort intelligence, “cherry-picking” bits of information that support their preconceived conclusions. “There is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Defense Department and the intelligence community, to include its own Defense Intelligence Agency,” a defense official will tell the New York Times. “Wolfowitz and company disbelieve any analysis that doesn’t support their own preconceived conclusions. The CIA is enemy territory, as far are they’re concerned.”
This group leaked material from the US intelligence community, a pattern which will become familiar.
According to unnamed Pentagon and US intelligence officials, the group is also accused of providing sensitive CIA and Pentagon intercepts to the US-funded Iraqi National Congress, which then pass them on to the government of Iran.
In 2002, after the CIA launches a covert attack in Yemen, Wolfowitz blows the cover of the operation on national television, jeopardizing the agencies ability to conduct similar operations in the future.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confirms that the assassination of Qaed Senyan al-Harethi in Yemen two days earlier… was done with a US Predator drone that struck the truck carrying al-Harethi and five others. Initial reported suggested that the truck was destroyed by a car bomb, but this cover story is blown when Wolfowitz brags about the success of the operation on CNN, revealing US involvement. Newsweek reports that “The CIA, which ran the operation, was furious with the Defense Department for blowing its cover story.” US procedures required that the Yemeni government had to give approval of the strike in advance, and the revelation of such approval is highly embarrassing to the Yemeni government…. The CIA view is, you dumb bastards, this means no other country will cooperate with us!”
The next big leak, will be Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Richard Armitage’s outing of CIA operative Valeria Plame, six months later, in retaliation for her husband, Joe Wilson’s op-ed piece in the New York Times debunking claims that Iraq tried to purchase uranium. No evidence that Wolfowitz was involved, but Dick Cheney sure seems to have been.
The pattern here is clear. The NeoCons could care less about the operations of the US intelligence community. They want the CIA and its partners to produce the evidence which they need to support the operations which they plan to launch. Leaks of classified intelligence information can and will be made whenever Wolfowitz or the administration feels like it---and there is nothing the US intelligence community can do about it.
During 2002, Wolfowitz grows increasingly angry at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, as they fail (or refuse) to produce the evidence he wants to back up the claims he is making to the press that an Iraqi diplomat met a 9/11 hijacker in the Czech Republic.
September 23, 2002: Newsweek reports that the CIA is resisting Pentagon demands to obtain pictures of the alleged meeting from Iraqi exiles. One official says, “We do not shy away from evidence. But we also don’t make it up.”’
Wolfowitz is also reported to have become enraged when the CIA failed to find any useful material when he told them to dig up dirt that would discredit Han Blix, chairman of the UN Weapons Inspection Team. By 2003, as US intelligence is failing to provide the story that he wants to hear, Wolfowitz and his NeoCon buddies, begin turning directly to Israeli intelligence.
After several CIA reports downplay intelligence provided to Washington by Israeli intelligence officials, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives working in the Pentagon begin meeting personally with Israeli officials to hear their intelligence. The CIA’s reports had found that conclusions made by Israeli intelligence were often skewed by its biases against the Arab world.
Note that the US intelligence community was correct when it said that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, that an invasion of Iraq could lead to a prolonged conflict and a civil war and the several hundred thousand US troops could be involved. (If you add up the private contractors, there are several hundred thousand over there now.). In contrast, Wolfowitz toured the TV talk shows, declaring that we would be in and out, the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil, there would be no ethnic violence and the Iraqis would greet us as liberators.
Paul Wolfowitz believes himself to be a genius. In fact, he is a Goebbels style propaganda master.
Paul Wolfowitz is back at the White House, perhaps because time is running out on their plans to force the US into another war for oil, this time in Iran.
Signs that Wolfowitz is working behind the scenes will include efforts to undermine the ability of the US Intelligence Community to gather factual information about Iran and present it to the public. Intimations that Israel's intelligence agency is better than that of the US and accusations that US intelligence agencies are too political are also part of the Wolfowitz package. Most of all, since he is attempting to discredit the validity of their intelligence, he will attempt to cast them as liars and cheats. It is likely that the CIA decided to reveal its "Family Jewels" last summer in order to prevent the White House from holding the document over its head as blackmail to keep it from releasing the Iran NIE. Since “the CIA is enemy territory”, no tactics will be too extreme.
Consider the possibility that the more you distrust the CIA, the better job Paul Wolfowitz and his NeoCon partners are doing.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
