Intelligence Failure

From Stratfor.

This brings us back to the intelligence failure. One way or another, there was either a massive intelligence failure, or the WMD are still out there with the guerrillas. We think that to be marginally possible. But barring that, the fact is, someone was dead wrong. We don't think anyone lied, because that would be too stupid and unnecessary. Eventually they would wind up where they are now, and there was no need for that.

Therefore, there was an intelligence failure, and if the origins of that failure were not in a fixed, unexamined set of assumptions, then it is time for Powell, Rice and the intelligence community to cough up another explanation. While they're at it, they might explain whether the CIA predicted the guerrilla war that the United States currently has on its hands, or whether this was another intelligence failure.

Intelligence failures happen. Alternatively, intelligence estimates are sometimes overruled by customers who order up something more suitable to their political needs. All of this is understandable and part of the business. But the Bush administration's unending attempts to shoot down plausible explanations for intelligence failures without offering its own is bizarre.

If we are to believe the administration, the intelligence process worked perfectly. The mere fact that it came up with the wrong answer should not be permitted to undermine the perfection of the process.

Gee, we wish we could get away with that.