A
Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence
Agencies (Paperback)
Investigative journalist James
Bamford builds his case against America's intelligence agencies
from the ground up, which makes for devastating reading not only for
his subjects, but for anyone concerned with the nation's security or
simply smart use of taxpayer dollars. Indeed, one can't help but cringe
as the veteran journalist records the alarming post-Cold War
floundering of the C.I.A., N.S.A., Defense Department, and succeeding
administrations in the face of burgeoning terrorist threats that
culminate with the attack on 9-11. Seemingly caught flatfooted by the
demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S. intelligence community stumbles
through the 1990s as it becomes institutionally hidebound and sluggish.
During relatively peaceful times, its shortcomings, while not
unnoticed, remain largely unaddressed. As Bamford sees it, with the
arrival of George W. Bush, the situation goes from bad to worse. With
the neocons in power, intelligence gathering is corrupted and
politicized to create the grounds for going to war with Iraq. While
much of what appears here has appeared earlier in works by Joseph
Wilson, Richard Clarke, and others, Bamford pulls the loose ends
together and adds new reporting to create a wide-ranging yet taut and
absorbing expose of an American security apparatus that combines vast
power with stunning ineptitude.
Is this a "Bush-bashing" book? No. The author presents the facts, and
the President just doesn't come off looking very good. Sorry about
that, but the truth hurts sometimes. The President may not have been
the one that made a conscious decision to mislead the American public,
but it happened on his watch, and he bears the ultimate responsibility
for it. He is not the only one responsible, of course. Many in the
upper level of the intelligence community simply rolled over and let
this happen. And then of course there's the case of Ahmed Chalabi and
friends, who knowingly fed false information to US intelligence in
order to manipulate US foreign policy. This war was a result of poor
leadership, bad intentions and sloppy intelligence work.
This is the ideal book for any
citizen who wants a professional "once
over" tour of the various intelligence and policy pieces that broke
down and allowed 9-11 to happen, and then allowed the entire "balance
of powers" construct from our Founding Fathers to fly out the window.
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