White House, CIA: I Told You So
Okay, everyone who said I couldn't make it through the day without talking about Egypt was right. But when I read Judith's post and the article she linked to, I nearly choked. You wouldn't want me to choke.
It was this, in particular:
On Thursday, senior lawmakers pressed a top C.I.A. official on Capitol Hill about whether Mr. Obama had been given enough warning about the perils of the growing demonstrations in Cairo, and whether spy agencies had monitored social networking sites to gauge the extent of the uprising.
The same day, America’s senior military officer said in a television interview that officials in Washington had been surprised by how rapidly unrest had spread from Tunisia to Egypt.
“It has taken not just us, but many people, by surprise,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an appearance on “The Daily Show.”
This is one of the rare times you'll find me disagreeing with you, Judith, and agreeing with Obama. Fine to say, "Well, we couldn't predict this to the day." Sure. But anyone in the intelligence community who was not minutely following what was happening in Tunisia on Facebook and Twitter, and who did not have enough of an instinctive sense of this region immediately to say, "Son of a motherless goat, this is massive, this is going to spread like fire, all hands on deck yesterday," should be sacked. Shame on anyone in that job who says it took him by surprise. And many, many people saw this coming long ago.
Look, I told you so. It is never gracious to say that, but in this case it needs to be said. Once Tunisia lit up this wasn't a Black Swan anymore; it was Swan Lake. Hell, it was a bloody Swan Storm. There were so many swans out there you could make swan duvets and cook swan soup for every employee of the CIA and every member of his extended family.
Part of me is saying this because it gives me smug pleasure to say it, but another part of me is saying it because I'm genuinely appalled.
Back me up here, Ricochet. You know I was screaming my head off about this. Tell your congressman that if Claire Berlinski could figure this out from Twitter, Admiral Mike Mullen should have been able to figure it out, too.
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Jun '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Claire, this is just your sly bid for the DNI position, isn't it?
May '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Politics has a way of finding you no matter how many dancing dogs try and distract you.
Nov '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
You agree with Obama? I don’t get it. Obama says he was taken by surprise, you say it was a black swan lake. What has Obama said or done that you agree with?
Jun '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Claire, I think it's pretty simple. You really can't assign much credence to what is said by anyone while being interviewed on the Daily Show. A big part of the intelligence world involves throwing out statements in media outlets to throw the target off his game. Who knows what Mullen or the CIA or any of our operatives knew at this point? They certainly aren't going to spill the beans to John Stewart.
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
It's the job of the spy agencies to let the president know an urgent crisis is gathering. He seems (to judge from the leaking) to be saying that they didn't. They seem (to judge from the response) to agree.
Jan '11
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Am I wrong to take a bit of pause when I read that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs gives a national security interview admitting an intelligence failure to the Daily Show during a crisis in the premier hotspot of Planet Earth?
If he's just spreading disinformation about our intelligence services, fine. It's a messed up world out there, and if this is how you keep your cards close to you, then good job guys, you've convinced me that your people are incompetent.
But if it really is the case that the President's advanced warning system is CNN, then heads must roll, and organizations must be "rethought". Anderson Cooper for DNI - who's with me?
Nov '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
It's the job of the spy agencies to let the president know an urgent crisis is gathering. He seems (to judge from the leaking) to be saying that they didn't. They seem (to judge from the response) to agree. · Feb 5 at 8:20am
It may not be a smart move for Obama to blame the CIA. Look for a series of leaks over the next few months on just what Obama was told, and that he ignored.
Isn’t Obama the one who said he wants a role for the Muslim Brotherhood in any new government in Egypt?
Edited on Feb 5, 2011 at 8:31amMay '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Well, the military has been aware for some time that there was a possibility for conflict in Egypt. In 2008, the USS Roosevelt made a port call in Cape Town, South Africa. That was unprecedented. It also was a clear indication the Navy was anticipating not being able to use the Suez for Middle East deployment. In his role, Adm. Mullen isn't entitled to his own opinions like you or me. The thoughts he expresses publicly are crafted based on the needs and wants of his bosses - the Secretary of Defense and the President. We have civilian control of our military. Come on, it's the Daily Show for heaven's sake! Sending Mullen out to Obama's base to watch him fall on his sword is just another deplorable act by an incompetent administration. This is pure theatre. Mullen's tenure is up soon anyway. Ask him privately about this after he retires. They knew plenty. You couldn't have gone to dinner party inside the beltway in the last year and not known about it.
Edited on Feb 5, 2011 at 11:18amMay '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Try this out:
"It has taken not just us, but many people by surprise," said Adm. James Halsey, Commander of the South Pacific Area, during an appearance on "The Daily Show."
Or maybe:
"It has taken not just us, but many people by surprise," said General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces, during an appearance on "The Daily Show."
We are a deeply unserious people, living in profoundly serious times. Those occupying our highest offices have nothing better to do in the midst of this crisis than be interviewed by clowns. I wonder if Adm. Mullen got to toot the little horn?
Jan '11
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Telling the world that CIA didn't know what was going on strikes me as a way of trap setting. This would entice people to do things that they would not in lieu of a good intelligence service. I don't know to what end this would bring.
If the administration declined to provide success or failure of CIA, then external forces would not be moved to take any sort of action one way or another. In my opinion, on the world stage you would rather have nothing happen as a result of uncertainty, than have something happen as a result of perceived weakness.
Does this sound reasonable?
Jan '11
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Daniel Frank: Try this out:
"It has taken not just us, but many people by surprise," said Adm. James Halsey, Commander of the South Pacific Area, during an appearance on "The Daily Show."
Or maybe:
"It has taken not just us, but many people by surprise," said General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces, during an appearance on "The Daily Show."
We are a deeply unserious people, living in profoundly serious times. Those occupying our highest offices have nothing better to do in the midst of this crisis than be interviewed by clowns. I wonder if Adm. Mullen got to toot the little horn? · Feb 5 at 8:37am
That is disturbing beyond words.
Sep '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Don’t know twit about analyzing twitter posts, but I think I can spot a CYA operation when I see one. This is CYA
Sep '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Admiral Mike Mullen should have been able to figure it out, too.
It could be his swan song.
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but did anyone see it coming that the Tunisian army would refuse to back Ben Ali? That was a massive surprise. It was the lack of army backing that prompted Ben Ali to throw in the towel. It was his departure, not the protests themselves, that kicked off the domino effect: people in other countries saw him high-tail it into the sunset and thought if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
Obama is angry that his people didn't tell him Ben Ali was going to fold, and he's frustrated that they underestimated the extent to which the wave of protests was going to affect Egypt. My point is that his people may well have told him "Ben Ali might fold, but the odds are against it," and that would have been true. They may well have told him that though the people in Cairo appeared to be mobilized, it was highly unlikely that Mubarak would tolerate any serious disruption to his regime. That would have been a reasonable prediction in this neighborhood: Assad, for example, has managed to squash any attempt at protest in Syria.
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
What's been revealed here has to do not so much with intelligence, I would argue, as with an overall inattention to the region that characterizes the administration. We saw this just a few weeks ago when Hezbollah took political control over Lebanon -- a highly significant event that seems to have caused scarcely a ripple in Washington. Obama is angry right now not so much because the CIA's crystal ball failed him but because this time, his disengagement from the region has been made so painfully public. His and Hillary's handling of the situation in Egypt showed the administration to be unsure what side it was supposed to be on. That scares me a lot more than the intelligence failure, frankly.
Dec '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
It's the job of the spy agencies to let the president know an urgent crisis is gathering. He seems (to judge from the leaking) to be saying that they didn't. They seem (to judge from the response) to agree. · Feb 5 at 8:20am
Captain, ship, etc. It's his team. He supports the intelligence agencies or he doesn't. Had they had given him names and dates, and he failed to act, how different would things look?
I suspect that the culture in place in this White House tends to cause the president to discount advice from military, intelligence agencies and even diplomatic channels in favor of his political advisors.
I predict the next world crisis will be a complete surprise as well.
Aug '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
I am simply curious. Which branch of -int would be the one to tell President Obama that some dude immolating himself in Tunisa because a female government official upset his apple cart (and slapped him) while asking for a bribe would lead to the fall of the government there, which subsequently triggers massive protests elsewhere and causing other governments to capitulate to their citizens. We don't have psychic-int. We would need it to foretell these events. While there are undoubtedly some professionals in the Intelligence community who were concerned about these events, the nature of the federal bureaucracy is that they provide answers up the chain in response to standing questions known as Commander's Critical Information Requests (CCIRs). Unsolicited information is generally suppressed the further removed from the analyst the decision maker is. Remember, US HUMINT was decimated under Pres Carter and thoroughly destroyed under Pres. Clinton. Unfortunately, the departure of all of those HUMINT professionals in the early 90's leaves a knowledge vacuum today despite the reconstitution as a result of 9/11. Generally HUMINT today is focused on terror collection and not citizen unrest.
Edited on Feb 5, 2011 at 10:15amDec '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
I think Judith has it exactly right. History in the Arab World - and the failure of the Green Revolution in Iran - would tell the CIA analysts to set the probability of success for a popular revolution in the Arab world very low. It's the job of the recipient of the intelligence analysis - Obama, the Joint Chiefs, Congress - to decide whether to make contingency plans for improbable but catastrophic eventualities.
The Black Swan fallacy says that if you've never seen or heard of it happening, it's impossible. It's a fallacy because (a) it may have happened someplace and you just never heard of it, like the black swans Capt. Cook discovered in Australia, and (b) things change, people change, and they can always do something new.
The danger of the fallacy is that we spend all our time and effort on planning for the obvious and expected and fail to take steps to defend against the "impossible." Taleb relates in The Black Swan what a casino security chief said about the biggest losses his casino suffered, none of them theft or robbery: ransom of an exec's daughter, unfiled tax forms, things that never crossed their minds.
Edited on Feb 5, 2011 at 10:39amOct '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Seriously doubt the Intel agencies were unaware of the tinder dry situation in these countries.. No one knew when the first match would be stuck or where.
The rapidity with which this has spred should be of no great suprise either.
The actions taken by officials here are predictable as well, stand back and try not to get their hands or images dirty...
I ask this in making a point, if you were to observe vandals breaking into your neighbors house or set it alight...Would you let them know and prevent a disaster???
Or sit back, safe in the knowledge that you could now pay less for the property and you never much liked the noisy neighbor anyway...
Sep '10
Re: White House, CIA: I Told You So
Obama is angry right now not so much because the CIA's crystal ball failed him but because this time, his disengagement from the region has been made so painfully public.
Judith, I agree with you. State and the CIA aren't exactly models of ruthless efficiency as they're portrayed in the Bourne movies, but I think the real anger of President Obama -- based on personal experience of dealing with people with his type of personality -- is that he's been made to look bad in other people's eyes. And I also think an even bigger frustration is that his Muslim man of the people schtick that he tried when he did his Kleptocrat Lawrence of Arabia style speaking tour of that part of the world was shown to be as useless as the Greek columns in his runup to the Presidency in convincing the Olympic committee to bring the Olympics to the US.
Pericles of Athens, Ohio he is not.
Edited on Feb 5, 2011 at 11:01am