The CIA Made Us Do It

James J. Miner
July 20, 2004

Remember comedian Flip Wilson?  Remember his character Geraldine saying "The Devil made me do it"?  Well, guess what, the U.S. government has taken a page out of Flip's book.  Only this time, the refrain is "The CIA made me do it".

The recent senate inquiry into pre-war intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction placed the blame squarely on the CIA.  No matter that this same senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the war.

The Associated Press reported, on July 9, 2004:

 The report, which was highly critical of departing Director George Tenet, said the CIA kept key information from its own and other agencies' analysts, engaged in "group think" by failing to challenge the assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and allowed President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to make false statements.

In other words, the Senate absolved themselves of all blame for a disastrous war simply by saying "The CIA made us do it".  The most powerful legislative body in the world itself failed to challenge assumptions.  The entire Senate and House of Representatives engaged in "group think".

The president himself is not above the blame game.  Reuters reported, on July 14, 2004:

Bush has not accepted responsibility for the flawed U.S. intelligence, a fact his Democratic opponents noted on Wednesday. The president insisted that intelligence he and Congress saw indicated an Iraqi threat to the United States.

So now, they’re talking about a new Intelligence Czar. As if more layers of bureaucracy could fix what’s wrong. Bush seems to be latching on to the idea, perceiving that he’s losing the hearts and minds of the neo-cons who have buoyed him in the past. This is a cynical attempt to displace blame for the Iraq fiasco. Make sure the fickle finger of blame points anywhere other than here, at the President’s feet. In other words, Bush does not accept responsibility for his own decisions.

The Brits also picked up the refrain shortly after the Senate report.  The British inquiry declared that British "intelligence was flawed, unreliable and incomplete".  Tony Blair himself escaped the conflagration, being absolved of any misconduct in misleading the British.  This time, it was "The MI6 made us do it".

These are our leaders.  They are to blame.  They should take the responsibility for their actions. I’ve said it before. The President and Congress ought to take responsibility. The CIA is not leading our country, the damn President and Congress are. The CIA is only responsible for providing information. It is the responsibility of our leaders to make decisions, to gauge that information, to assess its trust-worthiness. Not the CIA. The President, the Congress. They made their decisions, and they were wrong, dead wrong. Making a scapegoat of the CIA is not going to change that. A bureaucratic shuffle is not going to fix it. To fix things, you have to go to the source of the problem; our leaders and their damnable reluctance to face the truth.