At 04:17 PM 8/24/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 8:03 PM
>Subject: Re: Landmines RE: US Foreign Policy Re: *DO* we share a
>civilization?
>
>
> > The point I was trying to make (and rather badly I must admit) was that
> > there *were* people in the government who were warning top advisors that
> > Iraq had designs on Kuwait. Furthermore, on Aug 1, 1990, the National
> > Intelligence Officer for Warning issued an official warning that (in his
> > judgement of course) that there would be an invasion of Kuwait by the end
> > of the day.
>
>Interesting. This parallels a discussion that Gautam and I have been having
>off and on concerning the fall of the Berlin wall. I know an former CIA
>officer who stated that people he knew who were responsible for this area
>thought that there was a strong probability of the Berlin wall falling, but
>that they couldn't get their opinion up through the bureaucracy to the
>president. Gautam knows someone researching this area for his Phd who
>thinks the agency just missed it.
>
>Dan M.
Some of the former Military Intelligence people I used to work with had the
same opinions. Some thought that US Intelligence blew it, some thought that
the system wouldn't let a contrary opinion (the Soviet Union is falling
apart) through. Of course if the system is unequipped to present contrary
opinions to the decision makers, then US Intelligence *has* blown it, after
a fashion.
john
