Quote:
Originally Posted by DieselAddict
I never said we shouldn't do this or that to infiltrate terrorist groups. I say do whatever it takes. The Europeans are doing it quite effectively and it's usually a much smarter approach than sending a big portion of our military to invade another country based on cherry-picked intelligence.
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That European Intelligence that you speak so highly of is the "cherry picked" intelligence that was used. In fact, the British have never rescinded their claim that Hussein was pursuing uranium in Nigeria and other weapons platforms. In addition, that exceptional European Intelligence, German this time, provided us with the "inside man" that made many erroneous claims about Saddams chem/bio capabilities on which we acted.
Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and not foresight. It's easy enough to, after the fact, armchair quarterback decisions made based upon valid intelligence at the time. At least this time things weren't treated as a criminal investigation and then agencies prohibited from sharing data (they do that well enough on their own).
Trying to pin intelligence failure on "one day chopping trees and squirrel hunting" while ignoring the deliberate defunding and hamstringing of Intelligence Agencies in the 90's is ridiculous.