Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda

[patsfan13]

That’s because, like a number of his colleagues and top counterterrorism officials that I’ve interviewed over the past several months, Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.

It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield?
....
Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.
....
To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Queda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html

Great, meet the new head of the intel committee who will be telling the admin how to run the GWOT.

[BelichickFan]

Must be Bush's fault . . .

[DarrylS]

Maybe he can spend some time tutoring with that Rocket Scientist, George Bush..

[wistahpatsfan]

This is yet another sign that the Democrats have no more clue about what to do in Iraq than do the Republicans. More from the idiot Democrat Reyes:

...It was that way in Vietnam, too, Reyes says, which “haunts us. If you substitute Arabization for Vietnamization, if you substitute . . . our guys going in and taking over a place then leaving it and the bad guys come back in. . . .”
He trails off, despairing.
“I could draw many more analogies.”
Yet Reyes says he favors sending more troops there. “If it’s going to target the militias and eliminate them, I think that’s a worthwhile investment,” he said. It’s hard to find anybody in Iraq who thinks the U.S. can do that. On “a temporary basis, I’m willing to ramp them up by twenty or thirty thousand . . . for, I don’t know, two months, four months, six months — but certainly that would be an exception,” Reyes said.
Meanwhile, the killing is going on below decks, too, within Sunni and Shiite groups and factions. Anybody who pays serious attention to Iraq knows that.
Reyes says his first hearings come January will focus on how U.S. intelligence can do a better job helping the troops in Iraq. It may be way too late for that.
“Stop giving me tests!” Reyes exclaimed, half kidding. “I’m not going to talk to you any more!” ...


Out of touch and unaccountable. Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.

[Harry Boy]

The Circus starts in January, Auntie Pelosi will be Grinning for the camera's and leading the charge, it's a great day for the Dingobats, Chuck Schumer, Reid, Uncle Teddy, War Hero Kerry, "Poster Boy" Obama and Pant Suit Hillary, yup you got em, these are the slobbering sore loser haters that are going to be in charge of keeping Muslim Fanatics from blowing your kids up at the mall.
God Help America.

Whacko McCain wants to send 50,000 more troops to Iraq, McCain is a democrat "mole".

If you Lefties thought Bush was bad wait until you see this gang of Looney's in action.

[Patters]

The Republican sycophants set the bar so low that it will take time to lift it back up.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/comme...2914-2705r.htm

"Laurence Pintak, director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo, wrote in a recent column: 'It's not that President Bush was unable to tell the difference between Sunnis and Shias. Even after 30 years of covering the Middle East, that remains a very difficult task. But the president had no clue they even existed.'

"Mr. Pintak quotes a new book by Peter Galbraith, 'The End of Iraq,' in which the author describes the president becoming 'very perplexed during a briefing a few months before the invasion, when his guests kept talking about the Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. 'I thought the Iraqis were Muslims,' the president declared.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/op...rssnyt&emc=rss

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?� I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.�

[sdaniels7114]

The idea of sending more troops isn't crazy when you think in terms of the fact that we succeeded in what was western Germany and Japan way back when. I don't see too much of a difference between the two situations.

It may be too late now; but I have to wonder where things would be in Iraq if the occupying force had been 2x or even 3x as big.

[DarrylS]

Originally Posted by sdaniels7114

The idea of sending more troops isn't crazy when you think in terms of the fact that we succeeded in what was western Germany and Japan way back when. I don't see too much of a difference between the two situations.

It may be too late now; but I have to wonder where things would be in Iraq if the occupying force had been 2x or even 3x as big.

Does this point to the same faux pas as in Viet Nam, that these wars are fought from the oval office, pentagon and halls of congress instead of by the generals who know what is going on?? The issue of a big occupying force would have led to some type of involuntary conscription, and that would have led to chaos. Particularly if there was a no deferment, lottery type system that would have led to a bunch of upper and middle class getting drafted and killed.

[wistahpatsfan]

Originally Posted by sdaniels7114

The idea of sending more troops isn't crazy when you think in terms of the fact that we succeeded in what was western Germany and Japan way back when. I don't see too much of a difference between the two situations.

It may be too late now; ...

Here's the main difference:
Japan and Germany were civilized cultures with strong national, cultural, and religious identities that were mostly uniform throughout their respective societies. They also started the war and were soundly beaten and anhilated for very good reason and they knew it at the end. The combination of exhaustion, guilt, and responsibility made the post war process much easier and attainable. Iraq as a "country" has none of that going for them or us. There likely will not be an Iraq before long and no one will notice any difference - in fact things might be more natural.

[Harry Boy]

Originally Posted by sdaniels7114

The idea of sending more troops isn't crazy when you think in terms of the fact that we succeeded in what was western Germany and Japan way back when. I don't see too much of a difference between the two situations.

It may be too late now; but I have to wonder where things would be in Iraq if the occupying force had been 2x or even 3x as big.

Exactly, "ENOUGH TROOPS IN THE BEGINNING", we don't fight wars to WIN anymore, we lost in Viet Nam and we will Lose in Iraq.

The Socialist Anti American Liberals won the Viet Nam War and they will win the Iraqi War.

THE BACK STABBING SORE LOSER DEMOCRATS VOTED TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ.

DIRTY ROTTEN STINKING SCUM SUCKING F-CKING TRAITOR BASTARDS.