Article

2005-10-13 Home Front: Politix

Retired CIA officers sez Agency predicted Iraq chaos

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Dan Darling 2005-10-13 00:23|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 More sour grapes. Porter Goss can't clean the stables fast enough. However, on the few occasions that I dealt with the CIA technical and threat assessment people, I found them to be exceedingly knowledgeable, helpful, and apolitical. But then again, that was in the 70's and 80's and they were engineers instead of liberal arts / ivy league types.

Posted by RWV 2005-10-13 00:39|| 2005-10-13 00:39|| Front Page Top

#2 I'll bet that the CIA have hot spot assesment docs on any unstable country that predict all kinds of scenarios.

On monday morning viola.."WE PREDICTED THAT".

Posted by Red Dog 2005-10-13 02:09|| 2005-10-13 02:09|| Front Page Top

#3 Predicted it all, eh? Even a picture of a clock is right twice a day.

Posted by SteveS 2005-10-13 04:36|| 2005-10-13 04:36|| Front Page Top

#4 A review by former intelligence officers has concluded that the Bush administration "apparently paid little or no attention" to prewar assessments by the Central Intelligence Agency that warned of major cultural and political obstacles to stability in postwar Iraq.

Damn - too bad they didn't predict 9/11. Or the fall of the Berlin Wall.

WTF ever.

Posted by Rawsnacks 2005-10-13 10:25|| 2005-10-13 10:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Mr. Kerr said the agency had also accurately "calculated the impact of the war on oil markets" and "accurately forecast the reactions of the ethnic and tribal factions in Iraq."

Hell, I could've predicted that, and I'm just a schmoe - not a professional intel analyst. Rawsnacks nails it: Predict something that involves some real insight that will help us prevent or take advantage of a situation and I'll start taking you seriously.

Posted by Xbalanke 2005-10-13 11:48|| 2005-10-13 11:48|| Front Page Top

#6 90% of CIA analysis activities could be privatized to competing think tanks using open sources to generate analyses. Generators of accurate forecasts would get more contracts and revenue. Generators of inaccurate forecasts could apply for a job at the NYT.

Posted by Glort Whetle9985 2005-10-13 11:55|| 2005-10-13 11:55|| Front Page Top

#7 I guess my point really is: what are you predicting TODAY? I know who won the World Series last year, and I even know why. Hell, I predicted it all along...

But who's going to win it this year? Don't know? Then StFU. (go astros)

Posted by Rawsnacks 2005-10-13 12:08|| 2005-10-13 12:08|| Front Page Top

#8 Miles Copeland's Without Cloak or Dagger included an episode from O(1946) in which a fake network was created whose sole sources were the encylopedia and the New York Times. The powers-that-were applauded the results, resulting in much hilarity when they were told how it had been done.
I'm not sure the Times would be the best source these days, though.
No doubt OldSpook can/could tell us a lot more about open source research.

Posted by James">James 2005-10-13 15:33|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2005-10-13 15:33|| Front Page Top

#9 Don't mock us RawSnacks. We have this years World Series Winner narrowed to four teams. We knew the Yankees, Braves, Red Sox and the Padres werern't gonna make it.

Posted by CIA 2005-10-13 15:45|| 2005-10-13 15:45|| Front Page Top

23:38 Bomb-a-rama
23:37 JosephMendiola
23:27 Shilet Chogum1381
23:21 Alaska Paul
23:17 Mizzou Mafia
23:12 trailing wife
23:09 Ptah
23:07 trailing wife
23:00 Red Dog
22:45 Rafael
22:44 trailing wife
22:38 Frank G
22:35 Frank G
22:33 Alaska Paul
22:32 Paul Moloney
22:28 bbbustard
22:24 Barbara Skolaut
22:19 steve
22:15 doc
22:15 Phil Fraering
22:10 doc
22:10 gromky
21:51 Red Dog
21:51 Bobby