This article is quite long, but well worth reading. As much as anything, it’s an indictment of our dysfunctional intelligence services, as well as a reminder of just how bad an idea the Iraq war really was. On Iraq and the impact it had on the hunt for bin Laden and more generally on the effort to prevent al Qaeda from reconstituting itself in Pakistan:
Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq….
In Pakistan, the new operation was staffed not only with C.I.A. operatives drawn from around the world, but also with recent graduates of “The Farm,” the agency’s training center at Camp Peary in Virginia.
“We had to put people out in the field who had less than ideal levels of experience,” one former senior C.I.A. official said. “But there wasn’t much to choose from.”
One reason for this, according to two former intelligence officials directly involved in the Qaeda hunt, was that by 2006 the Iraq war had drained away most of the C.I.A. officers with field experience in the Islamic world. “You had a very finite number” of experienced officers, said one former senior intelligence official. “Those people all went to Iraq. We were all hurting because of Iraq.” …
By the fall of 2006, the top American commander in Afghanistan had had enough.
Intelligence reports were painting an increasingly dark picture of the terror threat in the tribal areas. But with senior Bush administration officials consumed for much of that year with the spiraling violence in Iraq, the Qaeda threat in Pakistan was not at the top of the White House agenda.
Read the whole thing. It’s important stuff.
peabody says
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p>From the start of the administration to post-September 11,2001 to today, the Bush administration’s incompetence has endangered us and cost the U.S. thousands of American civilian (e.g. World trade Center) and military casualties (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan).
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p>Thank goodness we have MA CD 6 Congressman John Tierney getting to the bottom of this as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee chair for the panel on national security and foreign affairs.
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p>Congress man John Tierney has the power of Henry Waxman’s subpoenas behind him. John will persevere and get to the bottom of these reckless and deadly shenanigans.
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