Last night, Hugh had longtime CIA employee and George Tenet advisor Mark Lowenthal on as a guest.  At the end of the interview, Lowenthal provided an unintentionally hilarious (albeit chilling) summation of the CIA’s pathos.  While discussing Iran’s path to nuclear weapons, Lowenthal posited that the Mullahs remain seven years from “mission accomplished”.  Hugh asked if we could afford to take the chance that the CIA’s “guess” on this matter was correct.  Lowenthal bristled, reminding Hugh that at “the CIA we don’t guess.  We estimate.”

I feel so much better!  Because there’s such an enormous difference between guessing and estimating.  And, let’s face it, the CIA’s track record on recent estimations is rock solid.  Oh sure, they severely underestimated Saddam’s proximity to nuclear weaponry in the early 1990’s.  And the Agency over-estimated Iraq’s WMD capabilities in the run-up to the Iraq War.  And regarding Al Qaeda’s plans and abilities, the Agency was effectively clueless.  But I’m sure the Agency has made some estimates in the past few decades that haven’t completely stunk.

Lowenthal’s insistence on highlighting the meaningless distinction between “guessing” and “estimating” is revealing.  The CIA actually believes its own bull-hockey.  Even though they’ve collectively blown every big one for the past 15 years, they still believe they have insight that no one else has.

AT SOME POINT DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign, some eager candidate will probably make an issue over intelligence reform.  The conversation will probably be less than edifying.  It will avoid the central fact regarding the Central Intelligence Agency – the CIA more than anything else analyzes data.  Where our enemies are concerned, the CIA doesn’t have much more raw data to analyze than the any curious and well informed American citizen inclined to do the same would have.

Popular legend and popular culture suggest the presence of intrepid spies gallivanting across the globe and unearthing the secrets of hostile nations that they cleverly infiltrate.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.  Much has been made of our impoverished HUMINT resources.  That’s Agency-speak for saying we don’t have any insiders in Al Qaeda or Iran giving us the goods.  Sad to say, infiltrating our enemies is tougher than Matt Damon makes it look in the movies.

So what do Agency analysts do?  They analyze stuff, and then type up memos to memorialize their analysis.  If the analyst is smart and good and talented, his (or her) analysis will be worthwhile though still not definitive.  If the analyst is obtuse, he’ll say things like Iraq having WMDs is slam dunk or that the key to everlasting global stability is Israel having the common decency to wipe itself off the map.

You probably recognize those last two conclusions.  The first was the product of George Tenet’s fertile imagination.  The second reflects Michael Scheuer’s careful conclusions on global affairs.  Here’s the scary part:  Tenet was running the CIA, Scheuer was running the CIA division tasked with stopping bin Laden.  They’re prominence in the Agency doesn’t speak well of the CIA.  It almost forces us to conclude that the smart kids don’t grow up to be CIA analysts, and the smart kids that do grow up to be CIA analysts are passed over in the Agency come promotion time in favor of horse’s asses like Scheuer and Tenet.

I had never heard of Mark Lowenthal before last night.  He may be a wonderful guy and we should certainly thank him for his service to our country. But his attitude reveals what is most pernicious about the CIA.  The CIA claims to know what’s going on.  It has for decades.  And presidents and congresses have heeded these claims.  They have for decades.  Yet the CIA has more often than not been clueless.  Worse still, the Agency has stubbornly refused to acknowledge when it has been in the dark.  Which has been nearly all the time.

If you want to know about what’s happening in the Islamic world, you’d be better off listening to the analysis of someone like Walid Phares than anyone in the CIA.  Although just a humble author and private-sector analyst, Phares has a track record of being a lot more insightful when it comes to Radical Islam than the Agency.  And get this – he actually speaks Arabic!  And Farsi!

A guy like Mark Lowenthal who bases his opinions on secondary materials and untold amounts of guess-work would have us literally risk millions of lives based on his “estimates”.  Honestly, I can’t decide if that position is more remarkable for its stupidity or its arrogance.

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