Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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On February 7 George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence (also the
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), Admiral Thomas Wilson,
Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Thomas Fingar, Acting
Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, appeared
before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
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Pertinent Excerpts:
[In Colombia] the insurgent [FARC and ELN] violence has fueled the rapid
growth of illegal paramilitary groups, which are increasingly vying with
the FARC and ELN for control over drug-growing zones..."
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Senator Durbin (D-IL): "Do you feel that there is any danger that the
United States' sale of what we term 'conventional' weaponry around the
world creates destabilizing situations?"
Mr. Tenet: "I never thought about it from that perspective....but there's
a difference between our pursuit of our legitimate needs to help allies
and friends beef up capability -- ...versus a mentality on the part of
some countries that everything's for sale...."
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Senator Durbin: "When we started on Plan Colombia...the rest of South
America was [lukewarm] about hat idea. How do you explain that?"
Mr. Tenet: "Part of it's us, part of it's our involvement....as we make
progress against the FARC and the drug trafficking organizations, which is
our primary motivation, it's [the violence] going to spill over into those
countries" [Colombia's neighbors].
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A last observation: while no one can reasonably expect Mr. Tenet or any
other intelligence agency head to have every fact at his or her fingertips,
what was striking about the question-answer period (in addition to all the
instances in which answers were deferred to the closed session) was the
number of times -- seven -- and the subjects on which Mr. Tenet's response
was a version of "I don't know the answer" (Gulf War MIA, missile defense,
links between Colombia miliary and right-wing paramilitaries, selling
supercomputers abroad), "we'll work on it" or "we need to think about all
that" (generation split among Chinese leaders, predicting Chinese reaction
to missile defenses), or (as above) "I never thought of it that way"
(effects of U.S. arms sales).
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The World According to the CIA
Colonel Dxxx Sxxxx, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research,
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