Beware Of What The Intelligence Community Observes And Concludes

Beware of Faulty Intelligence -- Ronen Bergman, New York Times

IN January 2007, Israeli intelligence officials were horrified by information acquired when Mossad agents broke into the hotel room of a senior Syrian official in London and downloaded the contents of his laptop. The pilfered files revealed that Syria, aided by North Korea, was building a nuclear reactor that could produce an atomic bomb.

Until then, according to military intelligence officials, Israeli intelligence thought Syria had no nuclear program. But that was because Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, had set up a parallel and separate system of command and control for building the reactor. The discovery caused a panic in Israel, and grave concern in Washington, which had relied heavily on Israel’s assurances that it knew everything about Syria. By the time the reactor was discovered, it was almost ready to become operational. Deeming it too late for diplomatic action, Israel asked the Americans to attack the facility that spring. President George W. Bush refused, so Israel went ahead on its own, destroying the reactor in a bombing raid on Sept. 6, 2007, and risking a war.

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My Comment: A sobering assessment on America's and Israel's intelligence capabilities .... and why we should always be wary of what they conclude and/or observe.