Questions about Intelligence use the press needs to ask

Paul R. Pillar, who until last year coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East for the CIA tells the press how they were too trusting of government statements about the uses of Intelligence on terrorism and the Middle East. He provides several questions they should have been asking if they had been properly aggressive about doing their jobs.

Q. Why was more not done before 9/11 to counter the terrorist threat from Al Qaeda in response to the intelligence community's highlighting of that threat -- as reflected in DCI George Tenet's public statements?

Q. How exactly is the reorganization of the intelligence community under the legislation of December 2004 supposed to correct what the 9/11 Commission stated were problems in counterterrorism? What effect, if any, does the reorganization have on the problem of insufficient or improper use of intelligence by the policymaker?

Q. When was the decision to go to war in Iraq made, what beliefs and analysis led to that decision (as distinct from arguments used to muster support for the decision), and where did those beliefs and analysis come from?

Q. On any future matter major national security decision:

• What beliefs and analysis underlie the decision?
• Where do those beliefs and analysis come from?
• How do those beliefs and analysis compare with public arguments used to justify the decision?
• What questions about the issue have policymakers posed to the intelligence community?

Q. When an intelligence assessment becomes a matter of public knowledge: Who asked for the assessment, why was it requested, and what determined how the questions were framed?

Q. When intelligence officials speak or testify, to what extent are their statements constrained by policy preferences?

I think I'd one other question, and that is whether the admiinstration is attempting to use the publicly reported Intelligence to conceal the real reasons they intend to take a given action.