Posted on 11/05/2006 7:36:37 AM PST by DaveTesla
A year ago June Congressman Curt Weldon (R. Pa.) published a book, Countdown to Terror, that included information he had obtained between 2003 and 2005 principally from an Iranian source living in Paris (“Ali”). The CIA had refused to talk with Ali and other related sources and Weldon’s book was highly critical of the Agency for that decision. The book has now become an issue in Weldon’s re-election campaign.
I read the book before publication at Weldon’s request and my comment on its cover reads in part as follows: “[it] is a case study of an intelligence failure in the process of happening, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States.” Events in the intervening months have made Weldon look wiser and the book’s critics less so.
For example, the book describes how Ali received information in January of 2003 about Iran’s nuclear program and in August-September of 2003 about the details and locations of its uranium enrichment. Iran’s active support of terrorist operations in Iraq against US forces, including particularly Muqtada al Sadr’s leadership and subservience to Iran, is spelled out in detail in several chapters beginning with reports from June of 2003. A number of these reports pre-dated the other information, at least as publicly reported, that was available to the United States on these points.
Several terrorist attacks that have been thwarted, such as one in Canada to hijack an aircraft and fly it into a nuclear power plant in the US and another to attack Parliament and behead the Canadian Prime Minister, are entirely consistent with Weldon’s sources’ warnings of planned terrorist attacks against Canada.
Of course not everything that Ali indicated to Weldon has come to pass or been attempted, but there is enough substance in Ali’s warnings to suggest that this is a man with whom the CIA should definitely have talked in order to obtain ideas to be explored further. Weldon wrote the book because of his frustration with the complete lack of willingness by US Intelligence, specifically the CIA, even to talk to Ali -- other than to warn him to stop communicating with Weldon.
This is not an isolated incident. As a journalist friend of mine puts it, “CIA case officers don’t do ‘ask-int’” -- in other words, just talk to a wide range of people to see what they have to say. Instead the culture is one of officers’ focusing almost exclusively on dealing with two relatively limited groups: their counterparts in friendly or semi-friendly countries (“liaison ”); and agents that they recruit, vet, and control (usually through payments).
The Director of Central Intelligence who served the longest, Allen Dulles, used to express great frustration with this propensity of his operations officers, and repeatedly told a remarkable personal story to illustrate his strong belief that if you’re in the intelligence business you should always talk to anyone who wants to communicate with you: you may discount later, but learn first. Dulles came to this view when he was serving in Switzerland as a young Foreign Service Officer during WW I. One Sunday a man came to the Embassy and asked urgently to speak with him. Dulles didn’t want to be late for a tennis date with an attractive young woman so he sent word to tell the man to come back during the week. The man never returned. After several months Dulles told his colleagues that, given subsequent events, he very much regretted his rush to the tennis date because he had now come to wonder what it had been that the man, who turned out to be Lenin, had wanted to see him about just before the Germans had put him on the train to the Finland Station.
Weldon has this CIA aversion to “ask-int” squarely pegged, and one of his major proposals for reform of the CIA’s culture quite appropriately focuses on encouraging officers to broaden their horizons and to be more willing to deal with sources that cannot be recruited and controlled – such as Lenin, and Ali. He is also right, in my view, that this sort of cultural reform is more important in improving the effectiveness of our intelligence than the reorganization focus that came out of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations.
Weldon also levels heavy guns in the book at the cultural norm of intelligence analysts’ seeking unanimity in order to have an “agency position” on issues. It is this search for consensus that he believes, and I agree, is the “single greatest weakness” of the intelligence community. To be fair to intelligence professionals, they are often bombarded by demands from political leaders in both the executive and Congress that they reach such consensus. But the right response is to display honest disagreements anyway and explain them. Intelligence failures are heavily driven by the tendency for “group think”, since one is often dealing with mysteries about which judgment cannot be avoided rather than with secrets that can be stolen.
In historical terms, it was the common judgment of most Western intelligence analysts (and almost everyone else) in the late 1930’s that the different ideologies of Nazism and Communism, and the hatred, even warfare (as in the Spanish Civil War), between the two groups meant that they would never cooperate. Only a few far-sighted individuals, such as George Orwell, understood that both totalitarian groups had one greater hatred – those who defended freedom. So the Hitler-Stalin Pact of September 1939, which essentially began WW II, definitely marked an intelligence failure of the first order. Analysts often can stand as a group -- when all the intelligence signals show hatred between totalitarian movements – for the proposition that they will never cooperate. They are then surprised when totalitarians prove to be ultimately cynical, and easily surmount their doctrinal differences to work together against defenders of freedom.
One of Ali’s most troubling themes, and one that could pose the greatest of dangers to the US, is cooperation between al Qaeda and the leaders of Iran. But the group view of the analysts, like that of their predecessors in the 1930’s, stresses the doctrinal differences between Shi’ite and Sunni Islamism – the bitter mutual hatreds, the impossibility of cooperation. And yet, Ali has some very interesting things to say about such cooperation. Would not the detonation of, say, an Iranian nuclear weapon in a US city be of such stunning value to both Ahmadinejad and bin Laden that they might temporarily agree to work together and resume their struggle at a later point? Being able to divide Poland was worth it to Hitler and Stalin.
Curt Weldon stuck his neck out and tried to get the US government to listen to what an interesting man had to say – some reports that might have given us some timely leads and enhanced our security. Weldon, like Wellington, has a strategy of marching toward the sound of gunfire. Such a quality is rare, and needed, in the service of the country.
Robert James Woolsey Jr. Former Director of Central Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency (February 5, 1993 - January 10, 1995).
Now why would the CIA be warning an Iranian informant not to talk to Weldon who is the vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee?
Standing by Weldon. He has done more in our district than anyone. His role in Foreign policy is remarkable and I've seen him involved with Russian diplomcay as well as Afghanistan, Libya, etc. He also speaks his mind, which may piss off the old guard. We need him.
Why wasnt the CIA and FBI purged after 9/11?
Why werent the actors in the former administration brought up on charges?
Why does Bush keep saying Islam is a religion of peace when its stinking founder was a child molester /warrior/murderer/sick bastard?
Ditto all his followers.
Why is Bush supporting the Palestinians even arming the sick bastards?
Why does Bush allow the Ruskies to keep arming the new
Hitler in Iran?
Why wasnt the CIA and FBI purged after 9/11?
dont believe the media... alot of people are still behind weldon. the way they are talking, hes already gone. the last independent poll had weldon down a point. this was a few weeks go but it cant be discounted. the last poll everyone keeps citing for the race that has sestak up 8 was a dem poll. weldon is a fighter and can pull this out. sestak is a complete fraud and i think people are seeing this.
"Why wasnt the CIA and FBI purged after 9/11?
Why werent the actors in the former administration brought up on charges?
Why does Bush keep saying Islam is a religion of peace when its stinking founder was a child molester /warrior/murderer/sick bastard?
Ditto all his followers.
Why is Bush supporting the Palestinians even arming the sick bastards?
Why does Bush allow the Ruskies to keep arming the new
Hitler in Iran?"
One theory is that it doesn't matter who we vote for for President - the CFR puts its chosen candidates up for election in both parties. Whichever one gets elected will be a Council on Foreign Relations man, working toward a one-world government.
I have to say that your post is the first mention I've seen of any poll results for Weldon/Sestak. Now I haven't spent a whole lot of time looking, but I would have thought that I'd find at least one.
But then, based on the media coverage (I live in Philly but not in his district), I would expect Weldon to be down by double digits.
I've wondered if the lack of reporting on polls for this race indicated it was tighter than the MSM wants you to think.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/pennsylvania_7-11.html
benenson and rt strategies are both dem poll outfits. the last independent one was the keystone poll.
ON NOW. Weldon district conference call...listening in.
Mr. Weldon needs to be reelected!!
Weldon talking about Able Danger. I've been saying to anyone who would listen that the attack on his daughter was payback for that. He made a lot of bureaucrats look really bad, especially the Clinton lawyers.
Hearing that a Sestak supporter attacked a Weldon supporter today in Radnor. Why is this not a surprise...except that it was there and not in Swarthmore (the lib Mecca).
More news...A guy in the Navy who was Sestak's #2 adviser had approached Weldon and asked to go on TV to show how terrible Sestak was, that he should never be allowed to go to Washington ("he's just a terrible guy and treats people like absolute pieces of dirt".) Weldon declined; he didn't want to take his campaign down to that level.
The liberals are taking this country on a fast track to hel*.
Hearing that 25k people are online, 250+ waiting to ask questions. Wow. Any other FReepers on?
Wow. The Democrat mayor of Media is supporting Weldon and will be out on Tuesday to help.
30k people on now.
People calling in, saying that they're canceling their newspaper subscriptions (we have the Delaware County Daily Times here in addition to the Inquirer) because of the savaging of Weldon's daughter. He should point them to FR :)
35k people on...
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