US intelligence on Arab unrest draws criticism
The Associated Press
3:34 p.m. Friday, February 4, 2011
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies are drawing criticism from the Oval Office and Capitol Hill that they failed to warn of revolts in Egypt and the downfall of an American ally in Tunisia.
President Barack Obama sent word to National Intelligence Director James Clapper that he was "disappointed with the intelligence community" over its failure to predict the outbreak of demonstrations would lead to the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, according to one U.S. official familiar with the exchanges, which were expressed to Clapper through White House staff.
There's more, too:
Senior US lawmakers questioned Thursday whether the CIA and other spy agencies had failed to give President Obama adequate warning of the crisis in Egypt...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D.-Calif., chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said after the hearing that the intelligence community's performance was "lacking." She said she was particularly concerned that the CIA and other agencies had ignored so-called open source intelligence on the protests, a reference to posts on Facebook and other public websites used by organizers of the massive protests.
Did you get that?
The CIA, with all their millions and millions of dollars didn't see the revolution in Egypt coming because they disallowed or ignored posts on Facebook.
Are you freaking kidding me?
And these are the rocket scientists, so to speak, who are keeping our country safe?
I don't think so.
Then, check this out:
A senior CIA official testified that spy services had warned the administration late last year that Egypt's government could fall. "We warned of instability," said Stephanie O'Sullivan, who had been nominated to become the nation's No. 2 intelligence official. But, she said, "we didn't know what the triggering mechanism would be."
Okay, so you wouldn't "know what the triggering mechanism would be" but once you come to that conclusion--that it's unstable--don't you keep your eyes and ears out for any and every sign it might fail?
Holy cow, people. The CIA doesn't know to watch Facebook and Twitter. What? Because it's free and that couldn't possibly hold any information unless it costs millions of dollars?
Why do I not feel safe?
They didn't see the fall of the Soviet Union and other situations,now they miss this one.
What do they get right?
I'd love to know.
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