GOP anger about the CIA not fearing up the people into Iran war

[ElboRuum]

I guess it was only a matter of time before the GOP started pressuring the CIA to give them an Iran War excuse. CIA, thankfully, though seems to be willing to learn from previous mistakes, much to their chagrin.

Here's the http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/washington/24intel.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=f985bca62045bd83&hp=&ex=1156392000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin">link to the full article but here's a few of the highlights:

Starts out suspiciously enough

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

Now to a read-between-the-lines, meaning-parsing sort of person like myself, all this says that the spy agencies aren't issuing statements sufficiently scary. In other words, Iraq War III needs to be waged... in Iran... like now, we've got an election to win. How will we manage this if you don't put some more "Holy shit! The British are coming!" in your analyses. Of course, that's just me.

The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.

Here's exactly what many of us said was going to happen if the people ever acclimated to the fact that we were lied to about Iraq. The Wolf Criers have lost all of their credibility.

“Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments,” the report said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction like nuclear arms.

"Provocative conclusions?" Correct me if I'm wrong, but did he just wink at the CIA and say that the GOP is ready to start cooking up intelligence again?

Some officials said that given all that had happened over the last four years, it was only appropriate that the intelligence agencies took care to avoid going down the same path that led the United States to war with Iraq.

“Analysts were burned pretty badly during the run-up to the war in Iraq,” said Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “I’m not surprised that some in the intelligence community are a bit gun-shy about appearing to be war mongering.”

Hmm. So the GOP is mad because the CIA wants to be sure... in other words, do their jobs properly.

And here comes Newty:

“The intelligence community is dedicated to predicting the least dangerous world possible,” said.

Seems to me that they're dedicating to acquiring accurate intelligence. This must be so hard for him. You know, having to justify international interloping.

You know what pisses me off about all of this? It's that if the CIA et. al. are getting pressed and burned in trying to cook intelligence to provide excuses for adventurism, and it is true that they are gunshy about doing it again for Iran, that if there IS an actual palpable immediate threat to this country by Iran, that they'll fail to report on or make conclusions about what they do know. And even if they manage to do this, are the American people faithful enough in the Wolf Criers to take the threat seriously?

This is why you don't lie about going to war.

[Supersedeas]

1. the boys who cried Wolf are bellowing again and are puzzled by the lack

of engagement

[sarcasmo]

2. "Fearing up the People" I am going to start using that one.

It describes exactly what this administration likes to do. Scare the populous.