Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Another intelligence failure?
It seems that we -- by which I mean the CIA and other intelligence agencies -- have grossly underestimated Hezbollah's military capability.
The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.
While the Bush administration has stated that cracking down on weapons proliferation is one of its top priorities, the arming of Hezbollah shows the blind spots of American and other Western intelligence services in assessing the threat, officials from across those governments said.
American and Israeli officials said the successful attack last Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, an American intelligence official said.
Friendly observation: When the CIA says there aren't illegal weapons in the hands of our enemies, it is entirely appropriate for our elected officials to question such "negative assurances" very pointedly.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Jul 19, 11:43:00 AM:
The annoying thing about this lapse in intelligence capability is that Lebanon is hardly the closed society that is usually the reason given for incorrect intelligence assessments
By 
allen, at
Wed Jul 19, 01:00:00 PM:
Looking at the long, glowing history of the CIA, the use of the words “CIA” and “intelligence” in the same sentence strongly suggests an oxymoron, somewhere.
How much money does it take to buy even modestly accurate intelligence, I wonder?
By Purple Avenger, at
Wed Jul 19, 05:11:00 PM:
Lebanon is hardly the closed society that...
There are parts of the Beka where you stick out like a sore thumb isf you aren't a terrorist.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Jul 19, 07:24:00 PM:
I harp on the CIA all the time, but to be fair, "the military capability of Hezb Allah" in Lebanon really isn't an issue for us. It is for the Israelis, (being in range and everything) but not for us. There's nothing those missiles could do to us that a truck/boat bomb couldn't do for less.
Ya can't condemn them for not being everywhere at once.
By allen, at
Wed Jul 19, 08:18:00 PM:
habu_3,
My friend, sorry for the shot at your old alma mater, but GOOD GRIEF!
What do you think about bringing back Mr. Woolsey and some other adult supervision?
By 49erDweet, at
Thu Jul 20, 11:34:00 AM:
No, the CIA has stumbled badly again. If their upper echelons would drop the "Y" from the center of their initials and once more insert an "I", they might again by the dint of hard work achieve some form of glory.
Unfortunately, what we see at this time seems to be less than acceptable tradecraft. And of course they cannot agree with that view of the situation, so they spend too much corporate energy endlessly navigating a certain river in Africa.
