Stupid Intelligence

February 10, 2005

Richard Perle, the dark prince of neoconservativism, is quoted in Reuters saying that U.S. intelligence on Iran is horrible: “As I understand it, virtually our entire [intelligence] network in Iran was wiped out,” he says, adding that dozens of U.S. agents in Iran were arrested in the 1990s. “I think we’re in bad shape in Iran.”

Now, let’s leave aside the fact that Perle is obviously releasing highly classified information illegally, since the fact that the United States once had 40 Iranian spies is supposed to be a secret. Perle is also admitting that the United States knows nothing about Iran, specifically about its alleged nuclear program that Condi is running all over Europe blathering about.

Here are some other quotes from the Reuters survey:

“If the U.S. intelligence was bad on Iraq, and it was atrocious, it’s probably going to be worse vis-à-vis Iran.” –Richard Russell, former CIA analyst now at National Defense University.

“We’re talking about military action against Iran and we don’t have a national intelligence estimate that shows what we do know, what we don’t know, and what we think we know.” –David Kay, former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq.

“I would be highly remarkably surprised if the United States has (intelligence) assets in the organs of power. They don’t even know who the second-tier Revolutionary Guards are.” –Ray Takeyh, Iran expert, Council on Foreign Relations.

It goes on like that. Unnamed intelligence sources' quotes in the article say things that are even worse.