As Congress rushed toward its August vacation it took the time to pass a far-reaching bill which allows the intelligence services to wiretap at will with no credible oversight. This is disturbing on a number of levels: it effectively ignores our constitutional rights to privacy; it eliminates effective judicial oversight of such operations; and assigns review to Alberto Gonzales, of all people. It is one more step on a slippery slope made dangerously so by the fear mongering of Bush.
But what is simply appalling is the bill’s provision of this kind of power to intelligence organizations that have consistently failed – in almost comic and cosmic ways – to fulfill their mission. Movies and books manage to suggest that our safety as a nation has depended on the brave, smart men and women who have run our agents, tortured enemy agents, analyzed secret messages, etc. Simply not true. The United States intelligence services have a record of almost blinding incompetence. With thanks to Tim Weiner’s book, “Legacy of Ashes†and reviews of same book by Evan Thomas and David Wise of the Washington Post, here is a list of some of the major (and sometimes entertaining) screw-ups of the CIA:
Failed to predict Soviet Union’s atomic bomb in 1949
In the 1950’s the CIA and British intelligence collaboration on Operation Gold, a tunnel into East Berlin that allowed listening to the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin. It was a terrific coup except that the Soviets knew about the tunnel before it was completed via George Blake, a British intelligence officer working for the Soviets.
Also in the fifties, the CIA arranged for the overthrow of Guatemala’s elected government (named “Operation Successâ€) to protect the interests of United Fruit. Dictators’ death squads executed an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans in following years.
In 1953 the CIA and he British worked to remove the Prime Minister of Iran from Office to protect the interests of British and American oil companies. The Shah became the ruler, instituted a new secret police (the SAVAK) and pissed off enough of his countrymen to help produce the Islamic Revolution.
The CIA failed to predict the Islamic Revolution.
The CIA did not predict popular uprisings in Eastern Europe in the 1950’s
The CIA did not predict the invasion of S. Korea in 1953
The CIA-run1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was a classic example of incompetence.
The CIA’s ridiculous attempts at executing Castro with the help of the mafia in the early 60’s.
The CIA did not predict installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962
The CIA’s support of a coup by the Baath party in Iraq in 1963, which led to Saddam Hussein coming to power.
The large-scale American escalation in Vietnam facilitated by the intelligence community’s manufacture of evidence of the so-called Gulf of Tonkin attack in 1964.
Richard Helms doing the bidding of Richard Nixon and subsequent presidents in exaggerating the capabilities of the Soviet Union to further the presidents’ political needs.
The CIA did not predict the Arab-Israeli War in 1973
The CIA did not predict the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979
The CIA did not predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, largely because it had no credible Russian spies after the CIA mole Aldrich Ames had betrayed them all
In 1994, the Guatemalan military worked with the CIA to bug the bedroom of Marilyn McAfee, U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala. She was recorded cooing endearments to “Murphy†and subsequently accused by the CIA station chief of having a lesbian affair with her secretary. Alas, “Murphy†was her pet poodle.
The CIA did not predict India’s explosion of atomic bomb in 1998
The CIA did not predict the attack of 9/11.
George Tenet’s 2003 “slam dunk†on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
These are the people for whom we are giving away our constitutional rights. Where is George Smiley when we need him?