Sull'efficienza dell'Intelligence community statunitense si è discusso anche durante l'audizione per la conferma del nuovo Principal Deputy DNI, Stephanie O'Sullivan:
"A senior CIA official testifying at the hearing defended the intelligence community's performance, saying that the nation's spy services had warned the Obama administration late last year that Egypt's government could fall.
"We warned of instability," said Stephanie O'Sullivan, who has been nominated to become the nation's No. 2 intelligence official. The hearing was on her nomination to be principal deputy director of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. But, she added, "we didn't know what the triggering mechanism would be."
(…) O'Sullivan deflected persistent questions from senators attempting to pin down precisely when Obama was told that budding street protests in Cairo had the potential to topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"What I am interested in is when the president was told how serious this was," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who noted that O'Sullivan had been warned that the question would come up during her confirmation hearing. O'Sullivan acknowledged that she had been made aware that she would face questions on the subject but "not in this level of detail."
(…) Speaking more broadly about intelligence on turmoil in the Middle East, Feinstein said, "I've looked at some intelligence in this area." She described it as "lacking . . . on collection."
The criticism triggered swift replies from intelligence agencies, which have frequently been accused of failing to anticipate emerging threats since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In the case of Egypt, a senior U.S. official said, the criticism is unfair.
"Analysts anticipated and highlighted the concern that unrest in Tunisia might spread well before demonstrations erupted in Cairo," said a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence on Egypt. "They later warned that unrest in Egypt would likely gain momentum and could threaten the regime."
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official lacked the authority to discuss intelligence, added that analysts "have been highlighting the many variables at play and the potential for escalation . . . keeping top U.S. policymakers constantly up to date."
Riflessione personale: i soliti, vecchi, problemi riguardo alla capacità dell'estimative intelligence.
Sembra che neanche Obama sia molto contento della sua intelligence…
"said that Mr. Obama had not ordered any major changes inside the intelligence community"
:)) eh… ci credo…
Paul Pillar su The National Interest:
"no matter how complete is our information about a situation in a foreign country and how astutely we may analyze that situation, it is impossible for anyone to predict the sort of happenings taking place in Egypt today. Those happenings are not the result of some secret conspiracy, detectable with sufficiently energetic collection of information. They are a spontaneous, leaderless eruption. The responsible government agencies should be expected to understand and to convey the potential for such eruptions, but they cannot predict the timing"
James Clapper (DNI): "Non siamo chiaroveggenti".
"Panetta said he has established a 35-member task force at the CIA to examine the issue and instructed agency station chiefs in the Middle East to intensify their intelligence-gathering efforts in countries where governments are potentially vulnerable.
The stakes are substantial for the CIA, which relies heavily on intelligence services in Egypt and elsewhere in its counterterrorism operations. The threat of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen is also considered one of the United States's most worrisome threats." (fonte WaPo)
"I guai dell'Intelligence USA" (CorSera) e "L'Intelligence finisce sulla graticola" (La Stampa).
Il parere di Paul Pillar:
"Large and important forces, capable of being understood with the right information and analysis, are involved in the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt. Those forces create possibilities and set limits. But within those possibilities and limits there is a wide range of feasible events and outcomes. Which events occur (or when they occur) and what outcomes ensue depend on many other variables that are so invisible or transient or numerous that they are not capable of being understood, much less predicted, no matter how good is our information and analysis. The lines between different possible paths that history can take are often awfully thin and hard to see. The lines of causation can be thin and difficult to see even when the difference between the paths is quite important, such as whether a ruler of an important country stays or goes.
This latest chapter in the Egyptian saga demonstrates how absurd (inevitable, but still absurd) are recriminations about intelligence services not “predicting” the unrest and ensuing events. If the question concerns a strategic understanding of the potential for such events and their underlying causes, no one has given any reason to doubt official statements that the responsible agencies provided plenty of pertinent warnings and analysis. If the question is instead one of specific prophecy as to timing or outcome, then we are in the realm of the unpredictable. That would be understood (as Stephen Walt has observed) to anyone familiar with the work of social scientists who have long had plenty of trouble trying to predict the outbreak or course of revolutionary situations. Moreover, what really matters is not anyone's prediction but instead the quality of policy. As I addressed earlier, policymakers do not (and should not) jump and change their policies in response to every warning they get from the bureaucracy."
http://nonciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/AISE
le cose vanno fatte con senso e diligenza…
buona Domenica a tutti…
FOLGORE
p.s. oggi e domani c'è il 2×1 ai museu nazionali paghi uno entrano due…per S.Valentino…dai portate un po' di pulzelle…la cultura è importante…e fate un figurone…
Carissimo Folgore, ho dimenticato di porgerti i miei omaggi 😉