Intelligence

[slimjim]

Now that we know just how useless western intelligence actually is, how scared should we be about the rest of the world? And who is ever going to believe the spooks again?

[Quizmonster]

All that can really be said, Jim, is that we have the "best-worst" intelligence service...in much the same way as democracy is probably the "best-worst" system of government. They may both be carp, but - as Homer Simpson says: "What ya gonna do?"

It wasn't just 'western' intelligence services that got Iraqi WMD wrong, since the Russian and Chinese governments also happily signed up to UNSC Resolution 1441 in November 2002 and that categorically claimed these weapons did exist. The other ten countries in the Security Council signed, too. The uselessness is clearly worldwide.

It would seem, therefore, that all 'spooks' stand condemned, but we're stuck with them, I'm afraid.

(I haven't lost the ability to spell and I am not referring to fish above!)

[Quizmonster]

Following on from my response of yesterday, this is what today's 'Times' quotes from Dr David Kay, the recently-resigned American weapons-inspector who claimed that there just were no WMD: "It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment and that is most disturbing."

The paper further reports: "Doctor Kay said that he, too, would have drawn the same conclusions as the Bush Administration had he been presented with the same body of intelligence on Saddam's weapons and that those responsible"...(ie the intelligence services)... "for the false reports must be held accountable."

I suppose it is still unlikely - even after this statement and the Hutton Report - that the whining about having been 'lied to' by politicians will stop. The evidence that it was solely down to faulty intelligence - worldwide - is now surely overwhelming.