What a long document, but it's still interesting
Ok, so I just finished my first perusal of the "Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs And Links To Terrorism And How They Compare With Prewar Assesments together with Additional Views" (seriously, that's what it's called.) and have some early impressions.
1) I agree with the minority opinion that the document is a witch-hunt and that it is designed to "...point fingers in Washington and at the Administration."
2) I feel that it really glosses over a lot of data and does a dis-service to the Intelligence Community by coming to a conclusion so quickly.
In support of point two above, let me quote from the report:
"The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which is leading the exploitation effort of documents(DocEx) uncovered in Iraq, told Committee staff that 120 million plus pages of documents that were recovered in Iraq have received an initial review for intelligence information. As of January 2006, 34 million pages have been translated and summarized to some extent and are available to analysts in an Intelligence Community database"
For the math challenged (which I admit to being a member of) that means that ~30% of the "120 million plus pages...[that] have received an initial review..." have been translated and summarized, leaving only the 70% majority left to translate and finish reviewing.
"But they received an initial review!" some will say, ok, granted. But does that mean it was truely analyzed or just glanced at? You can review a lot of the declassified information for yourself at the Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center's website for Operation Iraqi Freedom documents.
(As an aside I wish I could read Arabic (meh, something to learn in my freetime perhaps?) as some of them look rather interesting:
Log Records and Microfilm of Jews[?! WTF ed.]
Telecommunication lines in (IAEC) building offices and instructions by Saddam Hussein for internet use by government to hack and gather information off of websites
)
Anyway, back to the PFAIWMDPALTTAHTCWPATWAV report. The document really only says that while everyone accepted the Democrat requested 2002 NIE was factual and accurate with the information they had available then, in 20/20 hindsight and with the gathering of more information (that hasn't been completely exploited yet) that the Intelligence Community was, in retrospect, wrong.
Wow. What a long winded title to come to that conclusion.
I think that document also does a dis-service by focusing so narrowly on al Qaeda as the (apparently) sole focus of the "links to terrorism" section of the report.
Well, I will have more later, but first I have to get the report title out of my head as it's taking up too much space.
1) I agree with the minority opinion that the document is a witch-hunt and that it is designed to "...point fingers in Washington and at the Administration."
2) I feel that it really glosses over a lot of data and does a dis-service to the Intelligence Community by coming to a conclusion so quickly.
In support of point two above, let me quote from the report:
"The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which is leading the exploitation effort of documents(DocEx) uncovered in Iraq, told Committee staff that 120 million plus pages of documents that were recovered in Iraq have received an initial review for intelligence information. As of January 2006, 34 million pages have been translated and summarized to some extent and are available to analysts in an Intelligence Community database"
For the math challenged (which I admit to being a member of) that means that ~30% of the "120 million plus pages...[that] have received an initial review..." have been translated and summarized, leaving only the 70% majority left to translate and finish reviewing.
"But they received an initial review!" some will say, ok, granted. But does that mean it was truely analyzed or just glanced at? You can review a lot of the declassified information for yourself at the Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center's website for Operation Iraqi Freedom documents.
(As an aside I wish I could read Arabic (meh, something to learn in my freetime perhaps?) as some of them look rather interesting:
Log Records and Microfilm of Jews[?! WTF ed.]
Telecommunication lines in (IAEC) building offices and instructions by Saddam Hussein for internet use by government to hack and gather information off of websites
)
Anyway, back to the PFAIWMDPALTTAHTCWPATWAV report. The document really only says that while everyone accepted the Democrat requested 2002 NIE was factual and accurate with the information they had available then, in 20/20 hindsight and with the gathering of more information (that hasn't been completely exploited yet) that the Intelligence Community was, in retrospect, wrong.
Wow. What a long winded title to come to that conclusion.
I think that document also does a dis-service by focusing so narrowly on al Qaeda as the (apparently) sole focus of the "links to terrorism" section of the report.
Well, I will have more later, but first I have to get the report title out of my head as it's taking up too much space.
