"Intelligence" in a government or a military context usually involves not just information but the actions determined by what is finally defined as "information". "Smart intelligence" is not a redundancy but the real reliability of information, which is not necessarily what "official" intelligence decides is information. With these touchstones, it turns out that the intelligence of the greatest, most powerful, most democratic, and most just-about-anything nation on earth has a remarkably poverty-stricken record.

There is much more than the CIA to the American "intelligence community", but for the sake of not being short of accuracy we shall avoid mentioning any specific intelligence service in particular, except in this brief historical prologue: that the CIA proper was not founded until 1947, that before World War II there existed intelligence services and especially decryption departments in the different branches of the armed forces, that Franklin D. Roosevelt made a laughable hotch-potch of American intelligence from sheer vanity, and that after the CIA was created it was specifically assigned "operations" in Latin America. It must also be kept in mind that after World War II and until 1991 the defeat of the USSR was America's number one priority, that after 1991 USA government intelligence gradually became a watchdog against terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and that after 9/11/2001 it was oriented exclusively to capturing Osama bin Laden, overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and subjecting Iraq.

What worked in Guatemala was a fiasco in Cuba

The first notable intervention of the CIA in Latin America was in the overthrow in 1954 of the leftist government of Gen. Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. The operation was successfully carried out with one or two P-38s and a couple of bombs. Arbenz and his foreign minister Jaime Toriello were deserted by the Guatemalan armed forces, which from the 1960s to the 1990s caused hundreds of thousands of deaths against agrarian insurrections it never managed to suppress.

The next Latin American deed of the CIA was the organization in 1961 of the invasion of Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro by way of the Bay of Pigs. The planning for this expedition was initiated under president Dwight D. Eisenhower and approved by president John F. Kennedy. In many respects, it was not very intelligent. To start with, it wasn't very subtle. The Cuban brigade that was to knock Castro out trained in Guatemala in full knowledge of every one but Cubans whose names start with ZZZ. In fact, it was believed that it wasn't even necessary to get to Havana before Cubans rose up as one man and expelled or imprisoned Castro. The landing was on Playa Girón, a sandy stretch with one road through a crocodile-infested swamp. Castro made short shrift of the invaders. Kennedy compounded the un-intelligence by inviting all the Cubans who could have opposed Castro within Cuba to abandon their country and become Americans.

The only really successful undertaking in Latin America by the CIA was the overthrow of the Chilean Socialist Salvador Allende, but there are some quodlibets here. For one thing the role of the CIA in Allende's overthrow is debatable. The military led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet were intent on doing it and the CIA did not need to buy or train them. And two, if the CIA did participate, it must bear the responsibility for the tens of thousands of people who in Chile were tortured or killed during the savage period of the Pinochet dictatorship. The reason the Allende operation can be considered a success is because Chile today is Latin America's most prosperous country, which, who knows, might have happened without the butchery. Incidentally, Nicaragua is another "success story" if we assume that Nicaragua is indeed a success.

Iran and Vietnam

In general, it was in the third world and not just in Latin America that the CIA had a free run. Its most renowned intervention was in Iran where it backed shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi to the hilt and in 1953 managed to enthrone him as a pro-American dictator. Reza Pahlavi tried to modernize Iran but used a very heavy hand. When a Muslim national insurrection forced the shah to flee Iran in 1979, the opprobium for all that had been done during the dictatorship was placed on the USA. Followed the sequestration of the American embassy with its diplomatic personnel in Tehran and the chasm that still separates the USA and Iran. There have been attempts at political reform of the Iranian theocracy, but they were certainly not encouraged by president George W. Bush's branding of Iran as part of an "axis of evil". As the American occupation of Iraq has become more problematical, Iran has become more defiant in its effort to conceal its nuclear program.

The American intelligence record against communism is patchy, not to say lamentable. In 1954, when Vietnam was divided into a communist north and a capitalist south, South Vietnam began organizing itself to resist communism under president Ngo Dinh Diem, appointed by the last Vietnamese king, Bao Dai (whom Diem deposed later). Diem was Catholic and had considerable support in his own country. He cancelled the elections for Vietnamese unification in 1956 with the plausible argument that the communists in the north would rig them. Buddhists monks, with dubious motivations to say the least, were putting pressure on the Diem regime. But in general South Vietnam was fairly stable.

In 1961, the USA decided to intervene militarily with 12,000 "advisors", a force that by 1968 had grown over forty times. No sooner were Americans arriving in large numbers than American intelligence, much influenced by ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, began intriguing against Diem, who basically was thrown by the Kennedy administration to the South Vietnamese military dogs and assassinated in 1963. After that, South Vietnam became very politically volatile. Stability was achieved under Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, but by then it was Americans calling the tune, which made any South Vietnamese president seem like a puppet. During most of the war either the intelligence was lacking or it was disregarded that USA-fronting governments were doomed. When in 1973, the USA finally did hand power back to the South Vietnamese it was to a demoralized military clique that caved in to the communists in 1975.

A concoction of American intelligence was the "domino theory", according to which if Vietnam fell to communism, the rest of South East Asia would fall also. This so-called theory assumed without evidence that under-developed countries did not have the means and the will to suppress communism, implying (to American intelligence, mind you) that communism had more to offer the masses than capitalism. It was as if American intelligence was intent on denying the cause it served. But it had been shown over and over that underdeveloped countries were quite as capable as Americans of being ruthless about communists. Domino theory led to the deposition of the competent, neutralist king Norodom Sihanouk and the imposition on Cambodia of a feckless military regime that crumbled before the Khmer Rouge boy-soldiers, who then went on to kill millions of their countrymen.

That Kremlinologists were out of work, let American intelligence off the hook

But it wasn't in poor, backward countries only that American intelligence got it wrong. The USA was caught flat-footed by the invasion of Egypt by Israel, Britain, and France. Intelligence services might have fomented rebellions and dissent in the Soviet empire but not one of those that occurred--in East Germany (1953), in Hungary (1956), in Czechoslovakia (1968), and in Poland (1980)--was foreseen. Obviously, the gift of accurate prediction is not given to any individual or even to a conglomerate of the best and the brightest. But it is striking that when the USSR began its sharp economic decline during the incompetent, pompous Brezhnev regime (1963-1982), the estimates for Soviet economic performance emanating from American intelligence sources gave no inkling of the straits the Soviets were in.

Perhaps this had changed somewhat by the time Reagan was elected president (1981) for it could only have been through a very downbeat assessment of Soviet economic and military capabilities that Reagan dared to challenge the USSR in 1983 with the Space Defence Initiative, the anti-missile shield which, if quickly erected (and it wasn't really feasible then), would have been like inviting a Soviet pre-emptive attack. But the crumbling of the Soviet empire (1989), despite Gorbachev's avowed reformism, caught the world by surprise. And the dissolution of the USSR left Kremlinologists out of work (temporarily as they are surely back in business again), which in a way leaves the American intelligence community off the hook as it proves that Western academics and pundits are also wrong most if not all of the time.

The greatest conundrum of American intelligence

Having won the Cold War, the USA had an interest in maintaining the world status quo. President George Bush (the Wise he could be called) showed it with his statesman-like attitude during the First Iraqi or Gulf war. World stability required that nuclear proliferation not be tolerated, and this highlights one of the greatest conundrums of American intelligence.

The exact dates for the nuclear-proliferation network established by Pakistan are not known. But it is almost certain that by the mid-1980s, when the USA and Pakistan were already fast allies against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Pakistan was busily supplying Iran with nuclear technology and exchanging the latter for rocketry expertise with North Korea. To say it briefly, America became friendly with Pakistan precisely when Pakistan was behaving as perhaps the world's greatest purveyor of technological terror. These alternatives are, then, inescapable: either American intelligence knew about Pakistani nuclear proliferation and winked at it, or it had no idea that Pakistan was a nuclear proliferator, in which case it was worthless.

The inferences become wilder and wilder. But still remain valid inferences. American intelligence had to know it was dealing with fundamentalists in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. When Donald Rumsfeld established a cooperative relation between the USA and Iraq around 1983 it was to foil anti-American fundamentalism in Iran. American analysts knew that Saddam Hussein was a Baathist. They knew that Baath was a laicist party indifferent if not antagonistic to religion. Ergo, it was OK to use Iraq against Iran. So American intelligence in one part of the Middle East at large was palling around with fundamentalists and in another it was making anti-fundamentalist friends. This was cynical but acceptable. After all, intelligence is about mutual benefits, not about love marriages. What astounds is that America should have been surprised by Iraq, the Baathist state, making a grab for obscurantist Kuwait and firing off Scuds against Israel with as much gusto as the Taliban would have done if they had had half a chance. It was as if it ignored what is as palpable as the fingers of a hand, which is that the bridge linking all Muslims is hatred of Israel.

American intelligence still hadn't demonstrated its full capacity for blundering. Here however a caveat is in order. During the Clinton administrations, intelligence was focused if on occasions erratic. It sent Tomahawks flying against Sudan and Afghanistan. It was wrong about Sudan--how did intelligence miss that all-stops-out fundamentalism in Sudan fell out of favor when its defender, Hassan Turabi, was jailed?--but it was spot on in singling out the Taliban as a menace, which was more than Bush the younger could see. Clinton planned a pre-emptive attack against North Korea, but was talked out of it by the president of South Korea. In a general way, intelligence work during Clinton's period was of respectable quality. The USA bungled in taking on Somalia, but got out of there quickly when it realized there was no point in staying.

Once Bush the younger took office things changed drastically. American intelligence became schizoid. It also it seemed to have lost its power of concentration. Rumsfeld, who apparently felt betrayed, really deeply betrayed, by his chum Hussein, was named secretary of defense. Vice president Cheney also had an anti-Iraq grudge. And as to secretary of state Colin Powell, every one believed he was a moderate when in reality his view of international affairs was as distorted as that of the super-hawk Condoleezza Rice. The main thing was that president Bush himself wanted to attack Iraq come what may. And here's where the intelligence community had a personality split.

There was no justification whatsoever to go after Iraq but Iraq was made the suspect that American intelligence was forced to track as the suspected possessor of WMD. While this went on, intelligence was getting information on a regular basis on what was going to happen on 9/11. From different sources it was known: (1) that fundamentalists (and al Qaida specifically) were planning a big strike against America; (2) what means were going to be employed (airplane hijackings); and (3) even who some of the intended hijackers were (two of them participated in the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor in 2000). In sum, one part of American intelligence was on a wild goose chase while the other knew or suspected where danger lurked but could not get its act together or obtain listeners in the highest sphere of government.

When 9/11 happened, president Bush went to one of his higher intelligence operators, Richard Clarke, and asked him to find the hand of Iraq behind it. His interlocutor was speechless, because he and all serious intelligence analysts knew that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with what had happened. Shortly afterwards, Clarke quit. The "let's get Iraq" side had by then taken over the field entirely. The personality split was healed. But American intelligence was set to sink to historical lows.

As soon as the war was declared over, the lies started pouring out

Lies were concocted about Iraq. A so-called mission to save the country from a savage dictator was invented. The media went along. The supposedly sensible Powell told Bush to beware of taking over Iraq, as if any serious intelligence analysis could propound that he could do any such thing. As in the case of Cuba and Kennedy forty years earlier, Bush and his court were told what they wanted to hear: that Iraq would receive Americans with open arms and that peace would break out after the war. In other words, haywire policy determined short-circuited intelligence. It was the total perversion of the function of government intelligence. The most incredible part was that Bush actually did seem to believe the lies that he wanted to believe in. He had to know he was lying but he somehow imposed on himself the conviction that he wasn't.

On 1 May 2003 Bush declared the Second Iraqi war over when no sane intelligence analyst would have concurred. Immediately all the lies started coming out, so the "historical mission" of spreading democracy was trotted out. But even that part of the intelligence community that had gone along with Bush's fantasies, prominently the American arms inspector David Kay, dropped out of the circle of lies. Even Bush had to admit that the part about invading Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction had turned out to be wrong. Still there was the mission.

But what indeed was the mission? Apparently it was a double mission. One was to restore democracy to Iraq. Bush's intelligence apparatus didn't know, or didn't bother telling him, that no country enjoys being "liberated" for whatever higher purpose by another country. By early 2004, Iraq was up in arms. All intelligence appraisals had proven wrong. Not only did Iraqis reject the American occupation, but the intelligence that said that America's presence in Iraq would be welcomed by the Shiites, who had been systematically excluded from power by the Sunni, turned out to be literally dead wrong: the Shiites were as hostile against America as the Sunni. The Kurds were about the only Iraqis who weren't resisting the American occupation but they weren't cheering it either.

American intelligence, Bush the younger's version, began to see some light in May when it advised against an assault on Fallujah, which the Americans of course could have taken but with a high casualty toll and a further exacerbation of the insurgency. To illustrate a fine distinction, while Bush spoke of the "thugs and killers" in Fallujah, intelligence reports and the media were now talking about insurgents.

Sharon looked at the Road Map and all but spit on it

The other Bush mission was to solve the Israel/Palestine problem. In theory, the Second Iraqi war was part of the war on terror. Israel has always claimed that its treatment of Palestinian fighters is a war on terror. The Second Iraqi war might have seemed as if it had been fought for Israel. Israelis, whose intelligence services are far superior to American intelligence, knew otherwise. The mystifying Powell--it is almost unbelievable that a person could be so disingenuous--came up with a "roadmap" to peace in Israel/Palestine. After he presented it, he made sure to distance himself from Palestinians by making them primarily responsible for the problems in the region, including the hits they were getting from Israel.

Sharon looked at the roadmap and all but spit on it. He came up with his own "road map", which Powell and Bush at first feared (knowing how brutal the Israeli PM usually is), but soon found acceptable. Sharon's roadmap is unacceptable to most Palestinians, although Arafat seems willing to give it a try. But Sharon's plan, like the Second Iraqi war, is not an advance in the war on terror, but just another phase of it. American intelligence, and now also Israeli intelligence, are wrong if they think they can extricate their countries from the conflict with Islam that they have created, not because of a "clash of civilizations" or any such nonsense, but simply because terror does not go away, not in our days anyway (maybe it never has), by the naked use of state terrorism.

The war on terror will go on if America chooses to carry on with it. But this is mere word play. The Israel/Palestine problem will go on and on as long as Israelis feel confident in their atom bomb and do not accept the fact that they have to come to terms with Palestine.

Proof that Israeli intelligence is superior to American intelligence is that Israel has not assassinated Arafat, which probably also means that Israeli intelligence does not believe its own lies about terrorism being solely a Palestinian thing. It knows perfectly well that Israeli terrorism is much more fearful and lethal than any damage that any Palestinian suicider can inflict.

Why American intelligence does not accept that the only chance of war of terror is through a real, respectful dialogue with the Palestinians, is a mystery unless one assumes that American intelligence is simply dumb, but this no sensible person could believe. Despite our critique of the performance American intelligence, the fact remains that the USA won the Cold War and that intelligence was crucial in avoiding nuclear Holocaust.

But history does not stand still. In the last sixty years there have been two post-wars. There was the post-World War II, in which America was victorious. But now we are in the post-Cold War and this one America is not winning and it is not winning because, even though American intelligence has always been flawed, at this juncture it is evident that it has been deliberately perverted by a tiny group of arrogant nincompoops.