A War for Intelligence

Bob Herbert, of the New York Times, has a fascinating story on how Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense is considering picking up some new jobs. As you know, in the run up to the Iraq war, the Department Defense created its own intelligence gathering group because they were dissatisfied with the information coming out of the CIA. Well that strategy worked so well, that they are going to continue it, and combine it with a new program of sending our soldiers out to fight for information. As Herbert puts it, "That is utter madness. The geniuses in Washington have already launched one bogus war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and provoked levels of suffering that are impossible to quantify. We don't need to be contemplating new forms of warfare waged for the sole purpose of gathering intelligence."

The guy in charge of this new initiative is Lt. Gen. William Boykin who I always remember fondly. He popped onto my radar screen during my trip to New York last year (2003). So you know it will be good.