The intelligence bureaucracies

It seems to me that there’s a lot to disagree with in former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. He throws the Bush Administration few laurels:

Just consider the following: Osama bin Laden is still at large. Afghanistan is still insecure. Iraq is still violent. North Korea and Iran are still building nuclear weapons and missiles. Terrorist recruiting is still occurring in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and across the planet.

I’m pretty certain that many in the Left Blogosphere will take exception with his characterization of the Democratic congressional leadership’s position on the War on Terror and also, perhaps, with his characterization of the conflict we’re in as “World War III” and his assertion that Islamist terrorists present an existential threat to the United States:

President Bush today finds himself in precisely the same dilemma Lincoln faced 144 years ago. With American survival at stake, he also must choose. His strategies are not wrong, but they are failing. And they are failing for three reasons. (1) They do not define the scale of the emerging World War III, between the West and the forces of militant Islam, and so they do not outline how difficult the challenge is and how big the effort will have to be. (2) They do not define victory in this larger war as our goal, and so the energy, resources and intensity needed to win cannot be mobilized. (3) They do not establish clear metrics of achievement and then replace leaders, bureaucrats and bureaucracies as needed to achieve those goals.

Can we all agree that we have not been well-served by the FBI and the CIA?

2 comments… add one
  • I think the key sentence in Gingrich’s op ed is “Unfortunately, the great bureaucracies Mr. Bush presides over (but does not run) have either not read his speeches or do not believe in his analysis.” This is right on, and the sad state of things is compounded by an unwillingness by nearly half of the population to realize mutant Islamism is a mortal threat.

    The Left Blogosphere has already taken exception to the World War III characterization earlier this summer. It was condemned with great solemnity as “fear mongering”, and then promptly the DNC mouthparts started telling us how we aren’t actually any safer than we were on 9.11.01. This last, apparently, is not fearmongering.

  • Very interesting article looking at some of the lesser-known bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic problems with the future of the IC:

    http://www.cfr.org/publication/11355/survival.html

    PS: BTW, I’m travelling now and have no problem seeing the site. My issue from home must either lie with my ISP (earthlink) or a blocked IP. It’s nice to be able to read and comment here again – for the next week at least!

Leave a Comment