July 06, 2006

Book review

I finished James Risen's State of War last night. It's interesting to contrast his conclusions with those Suskind came up with in The One Percent Doctrine. In Risen's book, the CIA was and is pretty much inept, while in Suskind's book it's a much more competent organization, fighting the good fight to (unsuccessfully) stave off the worst excesses of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush.

Risen cites examples of signs missed, actions not taken, and obeisance to political will at the expense of truth. He mentions two station chiefs in Baghdad who were removed from that job because of their dire warnings about the insurgency and its growth, something Washington didn't want to hear. He concludes that Afghanistan has become a narco-state because of American neglect and Washington's change of focus toward Iraq. He even comes up with a story about a Russian-American scientist co-opted by CIA to give flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran in hopes that the Iranian scientists wouldn't notice the errors and thus be sidetracked from their nuclear goals for up to a year.

I'm not sure how much credence to put in all of the stories, but if even half are true it doesn't exactly put the CIA in a good light.

It's a fast read; only 218 pages.

Posted by Linkmeister at July 6, 2006 12:41 PM | TrackBack
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