Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan testifies before a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Defense - FY2020 Budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 1, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
CNBC: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan defends US intelligence gathering on the crisis in Venezuela
* As the political turmoil in Venezuela deepened, the Pentagon on Friday downplayed concerns that the U.S. was operating with a lack of intelligence that could lead to a decision akin to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
* “I don’t feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters.
* Shanahan, like others in the administration, has previously said that all options are “on the table” when it comes to possible military action in Venezuela. He gave no further insight on Friday into the Pentagon’s potential next steps.
WASHINGTON — As the political turmoil in Venezuela deepened, the Pentagon on Friday downplayed concerns that the U.S. was operating with a lack of intelligence that could lead to a decision akin to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
“I don’t feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters Friday at the Pentagon. During President George W. Bush’s administration, the U.S. invaded Iraq after citing faulty intelligence assessments that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Shanahan’s comments came after he met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House national security advisor John Bolton on Friday at the Pentagon.
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Update: U.S. intelligence on Venezuela 'very good,' acting defense chief says (Reuters)
WNU Editor: No mention on what the CIA is doing.
Yes, what is the CIA doing. Most likely working both sides of the street, with each team unaware of what the other is doing, you know, in case.
ReplyDeleteWhat else is he going to say, publicaly but "I don’t feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting,” no matter what the state of intelligence on Venezuela?
JFC. Was the intelligence on Cuba in the run-up to the Bay of Pigs good?
ReplyDeleteThe clown car is overflowing and Pompeo, Bolton, and Abrams are going to drive it over the cliff no matter what the "intelligence" says. These schmucks live in a consequence-free world and the more lives they ruin the more rungs up the ladder they climb.
According to these bozos regime change in Iran will happen any day now, too. Or maybe America can keep Iran in a state of a perpetual state of misery until time stops. Either way, we win!
Trying to compare Iraq with Venezuela is dumb. We had good reasons, as the entire intelligence community did, to believe Iraq had WMDs. Granted, its was a ruse and we lacked hard evidence (I.e. Eyes on target). For Venezuela, the intel is purely military type locations of units, weapon systems etc which the Military uses to decide threat levels and build plans. We can only make SWAG's on the internal workings of the regime, maybe we have more insight but this does little to change the Military threat assessments. You would need to assume all threats were real and not count on any just giving up; that's bad war planning.
ReplyDelete"We had good reasons, as the entire intelligence community did, to believe Iraq had WMDs." Such as...? Aluminum Tubes? Curve Ball? Scary mushroom clouds?
ReplyDeleteDid Condi, Don or Dick find any yet?
Next argue that USA really won in Vietnam.
Anon
ReplyDeletePerhaps the "good reason" had a lot to do with having previously supplied Iraq with chemical weaponry during the Iraq/Iran war. The stuff was used on Iranians and of course the Kurds and likely it was believed they still had lots of it stored away.