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The Real Intelligence Failure? Spineless Spies
By Mark M. LowenthalThe U.S. intelligence community has failed. We have failed as a public institution and as a profession. We have failed not because of 9/11, or Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, or Iran's supposed WMD, or the horror stories about renditions and detentions. We have failed because we have not explained ourselves adequately and comprehensibly to the public -- describing our role, the limits within which we work and our view of what can be reasonably expected from us. We have failed because we have allowed ourselves to be caricatured, vilified and misrepresented by people who do not know us, do not like us and do not understand us -- or simply see us as convenient fall guys. We have been, in a word, supine. And the net result has been a misguided restructuring of the entire intelligence community based on faulty premises. Inside the community, our passivity has meant crippled morale; outside the community, it has meant a severely diminished view of the value of the crucial, difficult tasks we perform. And we have allowed others to burden us with entirely false and unrealistic expectations. Posted by: 2008-05-29 |
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