Spy vs Spy. Espionage, in the past, has always been portrayed as nothing

[patricia92243]

short of phenomenal. We knew EXACTLY what was going on in other countries, and all this was with old technology.

Now, with new technology - why do we not know EXACTLY what other countries are doing?

If Bush is to be believed, it seems we didn't know anything about Iraq, and what information we did have was wrong and that is why he made the decision to go to war with them.

My question is WHY don't we know everything there is to know about other countries? Is our spy network not as good as it was during WW2 or even WW1?

[Beam Me Up]

1. Who believes anything * says? I don't.

He lies PERIOD. He lies to cover his STUPID and DISASTROUS decisions. I'm nobody and I knew Iraq very likely had no WMD. In other words, I believed the intelligence reports that were readily available to everyone. Of course, Bush doesn't read. He only hears and knows what he is told by Chney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc., which is why he was made pResident. They wanted someone they could control.

[Eloriel]

2. Even people I trust (e.g. Sy Hersch)

say that we have never had good humint in Iraq, and still don't and it's killing us. Literally.

[unblock]

3. different setup. these groups are far harder to spy on.

in the cold war, there were known people with known jobs at known locations. it's comparatively easy to bug the other side when you know the names of bribeable people, the buildings in which to plant bugs, the locations of files to steal, etc.

from the intelligence you gain there, you can proceed to infiltrate the more carefully covert operations of the other side.


with smaller governments, or worse, terrorists, it's much more difficult, because they have far fewer people; no fixed, central building; no id badges; and so forth.

to gain intelligence, you have to successfully bribe far less bribeable people; to infiltrate, you have to personally demonstrate very intensive, possibly odious, personal proofs of extremism.

[madmom]

4. what happened to the satellite that could....

read car license plate numbers from outer space? remember when that was all the buzz?