Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
Can anyone here that comments explain to me that after 9/11 and literally billions spent on the intel community, billions spent in new ISR sensors/aircraft/satellites, billions spent on defense contractors to monitor all of that ISR and the expansion of thousands of defense contractors and civil service intel analysts and not counting the billions spent on the NSA ----we still are not able to do exactly----what?

That was the excuse for the delays in Desert Storm in Kuwait as we only had two intel analysts on the Iraqi desk ---but now--come on there has got to be a better reason for the misspending of literally billions of dollars.
AFAIK, it's not 'the intelligence'. At least 'not any more', and that 'since long'.

Contrary to what happened in the Ukraine (where there seems to have been a lack of expertise, which resulted in nobody correctly predicting Russian reaction to the Maidan Revolution, see bellow), intel is doing its job in regards of Iraq (and Syria). And quite decently too. Just, and precisely like the military, intel has political masters. And that's where the problem seems to be - which is what I get to hear from a number of (unofficial) contacts in the DC, which in turn are confirmed by what can be read in articles like Saving Syria Is No ‘Fantasy’

...No doubt the president is sensitive to the charge that his rejection of the 2012 recommendation by his national security team to arm and equip nationalist Syrian rebels robustly has contributed significantly, if inadvertently, to ISIL’s growth in both Syria and Iraq. His comments to Friedman implicitly dismiss the 2012 recommendation itself as a fantasy, but as Secretary Clinton’s Syria adviser I was a member of the administration at that time. The recommendation, in one form or another, was offered not only by Clinton, but by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, CIA Director David Petraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey. Yet the president, ignoring decades of universal conscription and mandatory military service in Syria, persists in characterizing the Assad regime’s armed opponents as a hopeless collection of former butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.
...
Obviously, one can have all means of intelligence on hand, all the necessary info, best advice - and still insist on making wrong decisions. Perhaps being a 'Nobel Peace-Price laureate' makes one 'knows better'...?

Who knows.

We see the same thing in the Ukraine--NATO/US announces Russian artillery and troops are inside the Ukraine--Moscow says no they are not prove it and the US/NATO goes silent---does anyone have an explanation for the apparent true lack of US/NATO intelligence capabilities--or do western leaders just like to hear themselves talk to the media?
That situation was different, and here one gets to hear an entirely different set of comments - usually in following direction: Funding cuts, lack of opportunity leave US without expertise on international hot spots. Specifically:

...After the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States acted as though it no longer needed expertise on that region, and top talent drifted to the latest hot account. The abdication of interest in Russia, the attitude that “we solved that problem,” began at the very top of the policy establishment and trickled down to the businesses, government contractors, universities and think tanks that once employed Russia and Eastern Europe experts....
Another 'influential' problem can be found few levels below that one, within circles of various advisers. These are not only lacking the expertise in regards of Russians, but excel at ideas that are 'better' than Startrek and similar, science-fiction productions. For example, one of 'closed doors' discussions in the DC I was able to follow the last few months was characterised by specific (usually rather 'vocal') talking-heads providing ideas like, 'arm Israelis with B-52s, so they can bomb Russia in return for its invasion of the Ukraine' or 'ask Beijing to send troops' (whether to Syria or Ukraine, pick your choice).

Overall, I have absolutely no concern about the WH applying 'maskirovka' upon the ISIS. Nor about the functionality of the US intel. It's simply so that crucial advisers and 'the man' in the WH are better at playing golf than at running US foreign politics.