Intelligence War: Vietnam, Iraq and Now

19 July 2010 |permalink | email article

In an echo of the past President Bush soon after 9/11 persuaded Congress to rush to war in Iraq in reliance on discredited intelligence. In 1964, President Johnson followed the same path by persuading Congress to authorize broad military action against North Vietnam over the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released more than 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam era that show U.S. senators at the time sharply questioning whether they has been deceived by the White House and the Pentagon. The New York Times reported the disclosure which, while virtually ignored by the national media and blogosphere, has significant U.S. importance in the war in Afghanistan and beyond.

The transcripts at the time show enormous skepticism by senators behind closed doors over the incident in which the North Vietnamese were said to have attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days after an earlier clash. While senators did not publicly vent they asked very tough questions.

Sen. Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said that if the country has been misled the consequences are very great.” Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, another Democrat, said that in a democracy “you cannot expect the people whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their own judgment if the truth is concealed from them.”

Iraq and the Tonkin Gulf each are cautionary tales for President Obama to consider in the need for very precise intelligence in the Afghan war, while two-faced Hamid Karzai hangs out with the Taliban. As the New York Times reported July 11 a possible next desert war may occur in militant and fragile Yemen on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula – “Al Qaeda may have found the perfect combination of tribal hospitality, political chaos and military opportunity.” That’s why U.S. cruise missiles are already active.

L.A. Politics

The Daily News has launched a series of tough editorials on self-centered L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, suggesting that he’s run out of steam and acts like a lame-duck official. It didn’t help that on Saturday night at 6:50 p.m. the mayor was riding in a bicycle lane in Mid-City and fractured his elbow.

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