Novak: CIA at odds with Bush re. Iraq Since the Beginning

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 27 September 2004 | Robert Novak

[johannes89a]

Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, sat down Tuesday night in a large West Coast city with a select group of private citizens. He was not talking off the cuff. Relying on a multi-paged, single-spaced memorandum, Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam. This was not from a CIA retiree but an active senior official.

[Perdogg]

This is funny, when George Herbert Walker Bush ran for President in 1980, the agency were full of Bush signs.

I think the CIA is your typical Washington liberal insiders establishment.

[RobRoy]

Yes, and it was determined before Midway Island that declaring war against Japan after the pearl harbor attack would unite the Japanese against the US.

If you have no enemies, you're not doing anything.

[Dr. Frank fan]

The CIA like any large bureaucracy hates to see the problem they're charged with fixing actually fixed. The CIA was no doubt entrusted with a large responsibility (and budget) for its Important role in the Important, Neverending task of "Containing" Iraq. Naturally, they expected that this Important gig would go on and on essentially for all time. Bush has now come along and upset the apple cart, which is "reckless". After all, CIA was doing a perfectly fine job of "Containing" Iraq. Just ask them.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam.

And the signs of this increased hostility would be what? Attacks on American civilians? Attacks on the American military? Yeah, those didn't happen before we invaded.

[johannes89a]

Maybe with Goss in charge the atmosphere will change. He strikes me as a house cleaner.

[Servant of the 9]

Yes, and the CIA was so dead on about The fall of the Shah of Iran, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11.

It is time to start a new agency, and when it gets up to speed in a few years, kill the CIA. It has outlived it's usefulness.

So9

[Robert A Cook PE]

First. When hearing ANY Wasington official speaking in the next 4 weeks:

Find out who the person voted or, who he/she got appointed by, and who he/she sends money to.

Find out what job is promised to him/her in a Kerry administration.

Then, and only with those facts in hand, decide whether he (CIA official, much higher and more important that Wilson's wife (also a liar and CIA manager)) is worth listening to, and whether he/she is telling the truth.

By the way, same rule applies to ANYBODY speaking nationally.

Oh - I thought senior CIA officials weren't supposed to be taking notes to private meetings (and if it was private, why was the press there?) ...

Did he type this up on his office word processor? Use a government time? Use government paper? Get his secretary to type it up? Pass it to Dan Rather and the rest of the press? (Swifty in Oregon got canned for two weeks without pay for doing that by the democrats!

[Yo-Yo]

The CIA, like any good orgization, hires analysists with widely differing points of view, in the hopes of having all sides of an issue covered.

There is always a CIA analysists somewhere in Langely that can say "I told you so" no matter what the outcome of a particular event is.

[johannes89a]

Novak is probably playing both sides against the middle. Typical.

Regarding the CIA -- its effectiveness has always been diminished by its accountability to the public. The whole notion of a transparent spy agency is ridiculous.

The cure is in increased privatization of intelligence gathering and operations. See http://www.saic.com/ for more. Bush's new budget is built around this idea. Should be mid-2nd term before we see the changes, though, so we'll have to put up with this liberal hand-wringing for a while longer.

[isthisnickcool]

Islam is pissed off?

So?

[The_Republican]

Do we need a report from CIA to conclude that an aggressive action agains Iraq would INCREASE hostility towards us? Is their anybody in their right mind who thought this action would make us more freinds world-wide?

We did it because it needed to be done and how the world in general feels about us was not more important than killing any possibility of a relationship forming between a insane hateful Dictator and equally insane Terrorists.

That is what President Bush meant by 'gathering threat' and that is what he needs to point out to whole world in upcoming debates.

It would be foolish for him to explain the 'failure of intelligence' as it regards to WMD and the detailed analysis of situation on ground. He should instead bring the 'BIG PICTURE' into focus for the American Public.

Again, there were PLENTY of signs (Zarqawi, documents discovered in Afghanistan where Al Qaeda was desperately trying to acquire and manufacture WMD, Saddam's tolerance of Abu Nidal, Saddam's financing of Terrorist in Isreal, and his effort to keep most of the WMD manufacturing capability, if not the actual piles, intact) that a RELATIONSHIP was in its infancy between resources and sanctuary of Saddam and Al Qaeda. These are signs one can not ignore and sit and wait for them to materialize, especially if NO ONE ELSE would step up.

President Bush has to make this simple point. Period.

Finally, Bob Novak should stop arming the liberal hate-mongers and John Kerry with 'words' that can and will be used against President Bush, especially during the debate.

I use to say this as a joke, but now I truly believe that with age, Novak, Mcain, etc are losing their mind.

[johannes89a]

The problem with guys like Novak is that they only go part of the way with their vision of the future. They concede that we're involved in the opening part of a third world war, but hedge their bets just in case the liberals are right and there's some other way out of this mess. In some ways, that's worse than straight-up liberalism.

The strange thing is, as time goes on, Bush's "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" argument seems more and more cogent, even liberals routinely trot it out in an attempt to discredit him.

The reality is a grim one and we need to respond with grim action. Worrying about civilian casualties, global Islamic insurgencies and the rest of it are like worrying about spilling a cup of water in a hurricane.

One last note: I think Novak will eventually come back on side. He's just another journo trying to stay on the fence until after the election. Once we start moving on Iran and Syria, he'll climb back on board and sing hail to the chief. ;-)

[elbucko]

We did it because it needed to be done and how the world in general feels about us was not more important than killing any possibility of a relationship forming between a insane hateful Dictator and equally insane Terrorists.

Exactly. The only real point Bush needs to make is that regardless of WMD's or not, there will be no terror attacks upon the US by any Islamic group with weapons made in Iraq.

[lancer]

I find Laurie Mylroie's book on Bush vs. the Beltway to be convincingly argued.

What we have to understand is that the Agency was not always like that. Eight years of Clintoon larded the government with too many leftists.

Remember, the first thing Clintoon and Hitlary did was to fire ALL repeat ALL U.S. attorneys so they could stick their leftie cronies in those jobs.

He did the same thing with the CIA. He wanted Strobe Talbot (ye gods!) to take over the CIA!!!

[dr_who_2]

GHWB headed the CIA at one point. I suspect that's why.

[shrinkermd]

The elections in Iraq will be held. The terrorists will be killed and contained. We will not garrison metropolitan areas and have only several small forward bases for some time. The CIA will be reformed and cease spending their time talking to pundits.

The Presidenta will lead this country and we will prevail.

[Ranger]

If the CIA analysts decide to make public their assessments, this is going to be a bad thing for GWB. Its going to show that Rumsfeld and Cheney steamrolled the CIA and State. The timing of this is suspect. Expect more of the same between now and November.

[LenS]

Novak dislikes the Bush family. So as long as Dubya's in the White House (or longer if Jeb runs), he's going to be ripping the President.

[ArmyBratproud]

Odds are Pillar is the typical inside the beltway big government punk who loves to suck down the goverment dollars...and do nothing in return.

He does not want to see that the problem already existed...before we went to Iraq.
Because if he sees the problem...then he may have to get off his can and do his job. And for folks like Pillar...that's just too much to ask. They might have to miss their tax payer funded banquets...and dinner parties.

Odds are this guy is just another dem...who does not know how to do his job in the first place. Don't know who appointed him....but he has the signs of a clock rider who does not want to lift a finger.

Bush should have cleaned house on all major appointed positions when he took office. The good faith crap has done nothing but leave people in positions for which they are not qualified. And now they see the writing on the wall...they see Goss getting in...and they know the free ride is coming to an end.

So they will say anything to hurt the President.

Hopefully Goss will be able to clean house.

Hopefully, Pillar's sorry but gets canned on Nov. 3rd.