Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Intelligence Failures On China? -- A Commentary


From The Washington Times:

Underestimates could leave U.S. ill-prepared.

On Oct. 21, the incoming commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Robert F. Willard, made a little-noticed but astonishing accusation to reporters in Seoul:

"I would contend that in the past decade or so, China has exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability and capacity every year. They've grown at an unprecedented rate in those capabilities."

Very politely, the head of PACOM has accused the American intelligence community (IC) and, by extension, its political leadership, of failure to estimate correctly the capabilities and capacity of a nuclear-armed dictatorship with a history of hostility against all of its neighbors and the United States. According to the admiral, this failure has gone on for 10 years.

Read more ....

My Comment: Another example of U.S. Intelligence failing to do its job. What more can I say, but sound like a broken record listing one wrong assessment after another. My only hope is that the successes are kept secret, and there are far more successes than failures within the Agency.

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