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Monday, June 07, 2004

Its Ronald Reagan week in the news-- so nothing important is allowed to happen until after his funeral friday.

Lest we forget, the same press that now celebrates Reagan had an absolutely terrible relationship with him when he was president.

I wanted to type something about how bush was trying the neat rhetorical trick of turning Iraq into World War II and the GWOT into the Cold War, using the D-Day anneversary to repair a solid allied front, but that all has now faded into obscurity, at least over here.

Thursday, June 03, 2004

So George Tenet is out as CIA director.
I am actually quite surprised by this--not that Tenet is leaving, but that he's leaving now. I figured that he would be part of the mass exodus of senior people that will occur in December--after the election. Plus, it doesn't fit the Bush Administration pattern, which is to replace officials "in trouble" after the election. Look at what they did with the economic team in 2002. They said the economy was fine and that thier economic plan was fine and rode that through the election. Right after the voting was done, Paul O'Niel and Larry Lindsay were tossed. I figured Tenet would similarly leave post election.

So I am now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Its highly likely that some really bad news / relevations are right around the corner with respect to the intelligence community. The 9-11 panel, the Senate Intel Cmte, and the Senate Armed Svcs Cmte all have ongoing investigations that are nearing a head. Maybe Tenet wanted to get out before the "stuff" hits the fan.
Or, maybe he is all fed up with Bush and will do another of those exposes in time for the election.
Or maybe the Bush people really need a fall guy, knowing that things are getting worse, not better, and are setting him up for it.
Or.......

But one thing is clear-- things are not at all good in the Intel community. The latest is the Chalabi problem and the worse prospect of burning an intel source on Iran. Pile that on top of the overt politicization of intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war-- its 1983 all over again--and the subsequent failure of that intel once we got there. Fan the flames with the overt war between State, Defense, the Military, and CIA over policy, resources, and operational control over resources, and you have a very messed up community.

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