One of Mr. Frum’s readers sent him a very interesting email about the “problem” of the intelligence failure. Some hightlights:
…the intelligence community must naturally err on the side of pessimism and alarmism. The cardinal rule in military intelligence is to estimate the worst your enemy could possibly do, not what he probably is willing to do, or could economically do, or is likely to do. Worst-case analysis is the rule of the day. How could it be otherwise?
“I mean, here people are simultaneously saying 9/11 should have been anticipated, which would have required making seriously worst-case analyses about the threat posed by various low-level riff-raff, while at the same time making worst-case (instead of probable-case) analyses of the threat of Saddam Hussein was ‘irresponsible.’ Well, which is it? Which rule should the spooks follow?
Well, which is it? Which rule should the spooks follow?
Deliver both reports to the President and his cabinet officers and let them hash out which case the President will act on.
They do that already, Coward — along with their best judgment, which might just be a guess. The president isn’t an intel analyst, nor should he be.
Is that a Zen question? There is no answer. The question assumes that the Left cares about national security, when most of their leaders — by no means all, but the vast majority — see the defense budget as a hindrance to creating a Swedish-style welfare state.