The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230610404
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq by : O. Seliktar

Download or read book The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq written by O. Seliktar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-02-18 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coming at the heels of September 11, Operation Iraqi Freedom has focused the limelight on the way in which the United States predicts and manages political change. The failure to find WMD and more important, the continued violence in Iraq instead of the hoped for democracy, has engender an acrimonious debate on the motives of the Bush administration and its uses or misuses of intelligence. The question of who got what right or wrong has been fought out along ideological, and partisan lines, with supporters claiming that, given what was known about Saddam Hussein, the decision to change his regime was justified and detractors arguing that a group of largely Jewish neoconservatives, acting on behalf of Israel, manipulated intelligence in order to trick the United States into an unnecessary and costly war. The book provides a systematic and objective analysis of the problems that faced American intelligence in deciphering the behavior of the highly secretive and confusing Iraq regime and its enigmatic leader.

The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq

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Author :
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9781349372232
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (722 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq by : O. Seliktar

Download or read book The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq written by O. Seliktar and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-10-09 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coming at the heels of September 11, Operation Iraqi Freedom has focused the limelight on the way in which the United States predicts and manages political change. The failure to find WMD and more important, the continued violence in Iraq instead of the hoped for democracy, has engender an acrimonious debate on the motives of the Bush administration and its uses or misuses of intelligence. The question of who got what right or wrong has been fought out along ideological, and partisan lines, with supporters claiming that, given what was known about Saddam Hussein, the decision to change his regime was justified and detractors arguing that a group of largely Jewish neoconservatives, acting on behalf of Israel, manipulated intelligence in order to trick the United States into an unnecessary and costly war. The book provides a systematic and objective analysis of the problems that faced American intelligence in deciphering the behavior of the highly secretive and confusing Iraq regime and its enigmatic leader.

Intelligence and national security policymaking on Iraq

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Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1526130963
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Intelligence and national security policymaking on Iraq by : James Pfiffner

Download or read book Intelligence and national security policymaking on Iraq written by James Pfiffner and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decision to go to war in Iraq has had historic repercussions throughout the world. The editors of this volume bring together scholarly analysis of the decision-making in the U.S and U.K. that led to the war, inside accounts of CIA decision-making, and key speeches and documents related to going to war. The book presents a fascinating case study of decision-making at the highest levels in the United States and Britain as their leaders planned to go to war in Iraq. Just as the Cuban Missile Crisis has been used for decades as a case study in good decision-making, the decision to go to war in Iraq will be analysed for years to come for lessons about what can go wrong in decisions about war. The book presents a fascinating and truly comparative perspective on how President Bush and Prime Minister Blair took their countries to war in Iraq. Each had to convince his legislature and public that war was necessary, and both used intelligence in questionable ways to do so. This book brings together some of the best scholarship and most relevant documents on these important decisions that will reverberate for decades to come.

The War on Truth

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Publisher : Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors
ISBN 13 : 9781932033625
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (336 download)

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Book Synopsis The War on Truth by : Neil Mackay

Download or read book The War on Truth written by Neil Mackay and published by Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors. This book was released on 2006 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The War on Truth investigates all aspects of the lead up to the war in Iraq, its execution, and its aftermath. Neil MacKay contends that the public was systematically fed untruths in a manner that questions what kind of democracy we really have. MacKay, award winning investigative journalist for Scotland's Sunday Herald newspaper has covered the West's intelligence agencies for many years. In this book he questions why 'intelligence' missed 9/11 and why the best funded intelligence networks in history got things so badly wrong. The WMD debate is also covered. MacKay's extensive contacts in the intelligence community make a telling contribution to this investigation and we see an intimate picture of how intelligence is gathered, how it is interpreted and why things go wrong. We also gain an insight to Neo-Cons, the radical think tank that surround George W. Bush and some of whom stated before 9/11, that the US "needed another Pearl Harbor" to condition the American people (and their allies) into supporting war against Saddam Hussein. Author Neil MacKay is a three-times finalist as British Reporter of tile Year in the British Press Awards, Britain's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. MacKay revealed the identity of the Omagh bomber, exposed the British Army colonel who used loyalist terrorists as proxy assassins throughout the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland and unmasked "Stakeknife", the highest-ranking British army spy inside the IRA. His investigations into the war on terror and the invasion of lraq have won international acclaim. More than 200,000 US readers regularly turn to his stories on the internet every Sunday. In 1999, MacKay famously wrote an article based on briefings with CIA operatives in Pakistan that reported that aI-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden planned to use planes to attack mainland America. He has appeared on TV and radio regularly as a commentator in the UK, France. Italy. Japan. America. Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and throughout the Middle East. John Pilger: "Neil's masterly and prodigious scoops are the stuff of newspaper legend" Truthout.org: "the gold standard of investigative journalists"

Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

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Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479836265
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

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Book Synopsis Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by : Beth Bailey

Download or read book Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan written by Beth Bailey and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-12-18 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2016 Investigates the causes, conduct, and consequences of the recent American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Understanding the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is essential to understanding the United States in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond. These wars were pivotal to American foreign policy and international relations. They were expensive: in lives, in treasure, and in reputation. They raised critical ethical and legal questions; they provoked debates over policy, strategy, and war-planning; they helped to shape American domestic politics. And they highlighted a profound division among the American people: While more than two million Americans served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many in multiple deployments, the vast majority of Americans and their families remained untouched by and frequently barely aware of the wars conducted in their name, far from American shores, in regions about which they know little. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gives us the first book-length expert historical analysis of these wars. It shows us how they began, what they teach us about the limits of the American military and diplomacy, and who fought them. It examines the lessons and legacies of wars whose outcomes may not be clear for decades. In 1945 few Americans could imagine that the country would be locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union for decades; fewer could imagine how history would paint the era. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begins to come to grips with the period when America became enmeshed in a succession of “low intensity” conflicts in the Middle East.

Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy

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Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231527802
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy by : Paul R. Pillar

Download or read book Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy written by Paul R. Pillar and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A career of nearly three decades with the CIA and the National Intelligence Council showed Paul R. Pillar that intelligence reforms, especially measures enacted since 9/11, can be deeply misguided. They often miss the sources that underwrite failed policy and misperceive our ability to read outside influences. They also misconceive the intelligence-policy relationship and promote changes that weaken intelligence-gathering operations. In this book, Pillar confronts the intelligence myths Americans have come to rely on to explain national tragedies, including the belief that intelligence drives major national security decisions and can be fixed to avoid future failures. Pillar believes these assumptions waste critical resources and create harmful policies, diverting attention away from smarter reform, and they keep Americans from recognizing the limits of obtainable knowledge. Pillar revisits U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War and highlights the small role intelligence played in those decisions, and he demonstrates the negligible effect that America's most notorious intelligence failures had on U.S. policy and interests. He then reviews in detail the events of 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, condemning the 9/11 commission and the George W. Bush administration for their portrayals of the role of intelligence. Pillar offers an original approach to better informing U.S. policy, which involves insulating intelligence management from politicization and reducing the politically appointed layer in the executive branch to combat slanted perceptions of foreign threats. Pillar concludes with principles for adapting foreign policy to inevitable uncertainties.

Why Intelligence Fails

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Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801457610
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Intelligence Fails by : Robert Jervis

Download or read book Why Intelligence Fails written by Robert Jervis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the mistaken belief that the regime of the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002. The Iran case is based on a recently declassified report Jervis was commissioned to undertake by CIA thirty years ago and includes memoranda written by CIA officials in response to Jervis's findings. The Iraq case, also grounded in a review of the intelligence community's performance, is based on close readings of both classified and declassified documents, though Jervis's conclusions are entirely supported by evidence that has been declassified. In both cases, Jervis finds not only that intelligence was badly flawed but also that later explanations—analysts were bowing to political pressure and telling the White House what it wanted to hear or were willfully blind—were also incorrect. Proponents of these explanations claimed that initial errors were compounded by groupthink, lack of coordination within the government, and failure to share information. Policy prescriptions, including the recent establishment of a Director of National Intelligence, were supposed to remedy the situation. In Jervis's estimation, neither the explanations nor the prescriptions are adequate. The inferences that intelligence drew were actually quite plausible given the information available. Errors arose, he concludes, from insufficient attention to the ways in which information should be gathered and interpreted, a lack of self-awareness about the factors that led to the judgments, and an organizational culture that failed to probe for weaknesses and explore alternatives. Evaluating the inherent tensions between the methods and aims of intelligence personnel and policymakers from a unique insider's perspective, Jervis forcefully criticizes recent proposals for improving the performance of the intelligence community and discusses ways in which future analysis can be improved.

Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 140 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom by : Gregory Hooker

Download or read book Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom written by Gregory Hooker and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aftermath of the war in Iraq has generated a great deal of second-guessing regarding Washington's prewar planning and intelligence efforts. Gregory Hooker, senior intelligence analyst for Iraq at U.S. Central Command, provides a detailed narrative of the war planning process, beginning with the military's initial attempts to adjust to the new focus on regime change and closing with the government's ineffective preparation for the postwar environment.

Intelligence Wars

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Publisher : Prometheus Books
ISBN 13 : 1615920706
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis Intelligence Wars by : Steven K. O'Hern

Download or read book Intelligence Wars written by Steven K. O'Hern and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revealing insider's look at the U.S. intelligence community's efforts to fight insurgencies, O'Hern, who served in Iraq in 2005, offers a critical assessment of the nation's intelligence failures and suggests ways of improving the ability to fight an often elusive enemy.

Fixing the Facts

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Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801463149
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Fixing the Facts by : Joshua Rovner

Download or read book Fixing the Facts written by Joshua Rovner and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of intelligence agencies in strategy and policy? How do policymakers use (or misuse) intelligence estimates? When do intelligence-policy relations work best? How do intelligence-policy failures influence threat assessment, military strategy, and foreign policy? These questions are at the heart of recent national security controversies, including the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq. In both cases the relationship between intelligence and policy broke down—with disastrous consequences. In Fixing the Facts, Joshua Rovner explores the complex interaction between intelligence and policy and shines a spotlight on the problem of politicization. Major episodes in the history of American foreign policy have been closely tied to the manipulation of intelligence estimates. Rovner describes how the Johnson administration dealt with the intelligence community during the Vietnam War; how President Nixon and President Ford politicized estimates on the Soviet Union; and how pressure from the George W. Bush administration contributed to flawed intelligence on Iraq. He also compares the U.S. case with the British experience between 1998 and 2003, and demonstrates that high-profile government inquiries in both countries were fundamentally wrong about what happened before the war.

Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War

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Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1626167656
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War by : Richard H. Shultz Jr.

Download or read book Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War written by Richard H. Shultz Jr. and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Joint Special Operations Command deployed Task Force 714 to Iraq in 2003, it faced an adversary unlike any it had previously encountered: al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI’s organization into multiple, independent networks and its application of Information Age technologies allowed it to wage war across a vast landscape. To meet this unique threat, TF 714 developed the intelligence capacity to operate inside those networks, and in the words of commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, USA (Ret.) “claw the guts out of AQI.” In Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War, Richard H. Shultz Jr. provides a broad discussion of the role of intelligence in combatting nonstate militants and revisits this moment of innovation during the Iraq War, showing how the defense and intelligence communities can adapt to new and evolving foes. Shultz tells the story of how TF 714 partnered with US intelligence agencies to dismantle AQI’s secret networks by eliminating many of its key leaders. He also reveals how TF 714 altered its methods and practices of intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and covert paramilitary operations to suppress AQI’s growing insurgency and, ultimately, destroy its networked infrastructure. TF 714 remains an exemplar of successful organizational learning and adaptation in the midst of modern warfare. By examining its innovations, Shultz makes a compelling case for intelligence leading the way in future campaigns against nonstate armed groups.

To Start a War

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525561064
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis To Start a War by : Robert Draper

Download or read book To Start a War written by Robert Draper and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post “Authoritative . . . The most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.” —LA Times One of BookPage's Best Books of 2020 To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning. In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.

America and Iraq

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113403671X
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis America and Iraq by : David Ryan

Download or read book America and Iraq written by David Ryan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume provides an overview on US involvement in Iraq from the 1958 Iraqi coup to the present-day, offering a deeper context to the current conflict. Using a range of innovative methods to interrogate US foreign policy, ideology and culture, the book provides a broad set of reflections on past, present and future implications of US-Iraqi relations, and especially the strategic implications for US policy-making. In doing so, it examines several key aspects of relationship such as: the 1958 Iraqi Revolution; the impact of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; the impact of the Nixon Doctrine on the regional balance of power; US attempts at rapprochement during the 1980s; the 1990-91 Gulf War; and, finally, sanctions and inspections. Analysis of the contemporary Iraq crisis sets US plans against the ‘reality’ they faced in the country, and explores both attempts to bring security to Iraq, and the implications of failure.

A Pretext for War

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307275043
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis A Pretext for War by : James Bamford

Download or read book A Pretext for War written by James Bamford and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2005-05-10 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pretext for War reveals the systematic weaknesses behind the failure to detect or prevent the 9/11 attacks, and details the Bush administration’s subsequent misuse of intelligence to sell preemptive war to the American people. Filled with unprecedented revelations, from the sites of “undisclosed locations” to the actual sources of America’s Middle East policy, A Pretext for War is essential reading for anyone concerned about the security of the United States. Acclaimed author James Bamford–whose classic book The Puzzle Palace first revealed the existence of the National Security Agency–draws on his unparalleled access to top intelligence sources to produce a devastating expose of the intelligence community and the Bush administration.

The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir

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Author :
Publisher : Carroll & Graf Pub
ISBN 13 : 9780786713783
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (137 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir by : Joseph Wilson

Download or read book The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir written by Joseph Wilson and published by Carroll & Graf Pub. This book was released on 2004-04-26 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the last three presidential administrations and two wars with Iraq, no one has personally witnessed, influenced, or fueled news over more history-making events than Joseph Wilson. The last American diplomat to sit face-to-face with Saddam Hussein, he is a consummate insider who has the intelligence, principles, and independence to examine current American foreign policy and the inner workings of government and to form a candid assessment of the United States' involvement in the world. In February 2002, Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium in that country. Wilson's report, and two from other American officials, conclusively negated such rumors, yet all were brushed aside by the White House. Startled by the infamous words uttered by George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” Wilson decided to reveal the truth behind the initiation of the Iraq war. The Politics of Truth is an explosive and revelatory book by a man who stands for the accurate recording of history against those forces bent on fabricating truth.

The CIA and the Culture of Failure

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Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804756015
Total Pages : 552 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis The CIA and the Culture of Failure by : John M. Diamond

Download or read book The CIA and the Culture of Failure written by John M. Diamond and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The CIA and the Culture of Failure follows the CIA through a series of crises from the Soviet collapse to the war in Iraq and explains the political pressures that helped lead to the greatest failures in U.S. intelligence history.

The failure of US intelligence in Iraq

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Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3640783506
Total Pages : 11 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis The failure of US intelligence in Iraq by : Robert Fiedler

Download or read book The failure of US intelligence in Iraq written by Robert Fiedler and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Politik - Region: Naher Osten, Vorderer Orient, Macquarie University, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: United States (US) intelligence efforts are massive by any standards. More than 20.000 employees work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), another 21.000 for the National Security Agency (NSA) and another 8500 for the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). In 2004, the US government invested more than US$ 35 billion into intelligence and additionally numerous analysts work on intelligence in other governmental agencies with an associated intelligence function as well as in non-governmental institutions. Therefore, one might say that the US intelligence community (IC) is one of the most professionalized and effective intelligence frameworks worldwide. Hence, it is not surprisingly that reams of successes were achieved, even though many of them will remain unknown since the IC will keep operations and methods classified. Yet, despite outstanding financial and human resources, the IC produced many serious intelligence failures. Beginning with the German attack on the Soviet Union and Pear Harbour in 1941 until the failure to foresee the devastating terrorist acts of 9/11 failures are an element of intelligence work in the United States. However, one of the most serious failure of intelligence has been the preparation to the coalition led invasion in Iraq in 2003. The US intelligence community faces severe criticism and accusations of intended wrong information on the case of Iraq. However, in the following this paper will argue that the failure of intelligence resulted from a combination of bureaucratic obscurities and political intended production of customized intelligence. Furthermore, the reliance on doubtful information and the demotion of traditional intelligence processes led to the failure of intelligence in the advance of the Iraq war.