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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS Spies Missed Signs Of Aug. 21 Syrian WMD Strike
WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. intelligence agencies did not detect the Syrian regime readying a massive chemical weapons attack in the days ahead of the strike, only piecing together what had happened after the fact, U.S. officials say.
One of the key pieces of intelligence that Secretary of State John Kerry later used to link the attack to the Syrian government intercepts of communications telling Syrian military units to prepare for the strikes was in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies but had not yet been "processed," according to senior U.S. officials.
That explains why the White House didn't warn either the regime or the rebels who might be targeted as it had done when detecting previous preparations for chemical strikes.
"We know that for three days before the attack the Syrian regime's chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area making preparations," Kerry said as he presented the evidence in a State Department speech last week. "We know that the Syrian regime elements were told to prepare for the attack by putting on gas masks and taking precautions associated with chemical weapons."
But the Obama administration only uncovered the evidence after Syrians started posting reports of the strike from the scene of the attack, leading U.S. spies and analysts to focus on satellite and other evidence showing a Syrian chemical weapons unit was preparing chemical munitions before the strike, according to two current U.S. officials and two former senior intelligence officials.
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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-spies-missed-signs-aug-21-syrian-wmd-strike
leveymg
(36,418 posts)So, US intelligence can go back in time now, but can never seem to detect anything that might start a war in real-time. Curiouser and couriouser, especially considering that the Israeli defense publication DEBKAfile called this all perfectly on August 17, three days before the attack. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/24/1233633/-Events-in-Syria-Lead-Back-to-Israeli-Report-of-Imminent-US-Led-Attack-from-Jordan
On August 17, DEBKAfile, an Israeli defense blog reported that Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in Jordan inspecting command and control facilities from which the source reported, the U.S. would lead an attack coordinated with Jordan and Israel on Syria.
That story has been little reported, except to feed follow-on rumors that the Syrian Army (we're now told by DEBKA is under the personal command of the one-legged, one-armed brother of Bashar Assad) had personally commanded Syrian troops firing off Sarin rounds from a mountaintop north of Damascus in an effort to target these same FSA and Jordanian Special Forces troops that a few days earlier were crossing the border into Southern Syria. http://www.jpost.com/...
The DEBKAfile report was originally published a week ago, three days before the incident in Ghorta north of Damascus. (Note that Gen. Dempsey's letter of August 19 to a NY Congressman on Tuesday was strongly skeptical of the utility of an actual U.S. military role in Syria. http://thinkprogress.org/...)
Here's the DEBKAfile report of August 17: http://www.debka.com/article/23199/
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leftstreet
(36,106 posts)What went wrong?
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)they have their priorities...
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)by Greg Henderson
August 07, 201312:44 AM
President Obama defended the US government's surveillance program, telling NBC's Jay Leno on Tuesday that: "There is no spying on Americans."
"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209692380/obama-to-leno-there-is-no-spying-on-americans
I can't fucking believe how he's getting a pass on this