Sunday, April 01, 2012
Once burned, twice shy
And that well describes some in the CIA who totally screwed the pooch on nuclear weapons in Iraq and are scared they might do it again in Iran.
One C.I.A. analyst who had helped develop some of the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction had a breakdown months after the Iraq war began; he had participated in the post-invasion hunt there that found the weapons did not exist. When he eventually was given a new assignment assessing Iran’s nuclear program, he confided a fear to colleagues: that the intelligence community might get it wrong again.Unlike W and Cheney, most people would not be proud of starting two useless and unnecessary wars. All the more so as they are not protected by IOKIYAR.
“He felt enormous guilt that he had gotten us into the war,” said one former official who worked with the analyst. “He was afraid it was going to be déjà vu all over again.”
Today, analysts and others at the C.I.A. who are struggling to understand the nuclear ambitions of Iran are keenly aware that the agency’s credibility is again on the line, amid threats of new military interventions. The intelligence debacle on Iraq has deeply influenced the way they do their work, with new safeguards intended to force analysts to be more skeptical in evaluating evidence and more cautious in drawing conclusions.
Former intelligence officials say that this shows appropriate vigilance in dealing with often murky information, while some detractors argue that the agency is not just careful but also overly skittish on Iran, reluctant to be blamed for any findings that might lead the United States to bloodshed.
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