John LeBoutillier
Thursday, Nov. 1, 2001

Many of the media handwringers are trying to analogize this War on Terror to the Vietnam War.

Yes, there are some similarities: a determined enemy that hides among the civilian population, a culture and tradition we don't understand, a 'tunnel' camouflage system that masks their locations – and duplicitous supporters in the region, most notably in supposedly friendly-to-us Pakistan.

But there are many differences as well. For example, September 11 was a direct attack on us. No such direct hit on American soil happened during Vietnam. And, because of September 11, all Americans are engaged in this war.

In both Vietnam and now, our military effort is always dependent on two things: a) political support – not political meddling – and b) good intelligence.

We lost Vietnam because we had neither.

LBJ sat around the Oval Office at midnight personally selecting bombing targets. And, for political reasons, he ordered the most half-assed bombing missions ever imagined. Often pilots were told to bomb only half a bridge. Why? So the North Vietnamese could more easily repair it.

That type of bombing is not designed to kill the enemy and his ability to wage a war. That type of bombing was to break the political will of the North Vietnamese government to wage a war against us.

Of course it had just the opposite effect.

It connoted weakness on our part and thus emboldened Hanoi to fight on.

Our military effort did not lose the Vietnam War. Our politicians did.

Our troops and pilots, however, were also failed by a poor intelligence effort throughout Southeast Asia. The CIA, which as the OSS during World War II and then during the 1950's Cold War had worked well with the military, came to be despised by the military in the Vietnam War. Much of this was cultural. The military during Vietnam became 'blacker and poorer' while the CIA remained a bastion of the 'Ivy League penny-loafer' set.

The grunts doing the fighting in Vietnam came to loathe and distrust the CIA – and with good reason. Often the CIA had a different agenda than did our military.

In no instance is this more apparent than in the ongoing struggle over the POWs left behind in Vietnam and Laos in 1973-1975. The CIA was put in charge of maintaining a total cover-up of this disgraceful political decision made in the wake of Watergate. For the past 26 years it is the CIA that has permeated all decisions regarding Vietnam and Laos – and, especially, all new intelligence information which proves our POWs are still alive. All radio intercepts, photographs and live-sighting reports are routed through CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

And do you know what the CIA does with this invaluable information?

They discredit it!

It has gotten so bad that the late Gen. Eugene Tighe (USAF), the then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency – a rival intelligence-gathering agency to the CIA – said to Congress that "there is a mindset to debunk."

Indeed, to this day the CIA is much better at 'debunking' than it is at preventing/predicting an imminent attack on the United States.

Furthermore, the CIA 'steers' information to a predetermined outcome.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ongoing back-and-forth over whether or not Iraq is partnered with Osama bin Laden in September 11 and whether or not Iraq is the source of the anthrax presently paralyzing our country.

No sooner did ABC News report late last week that this form of anthrax has been treated with bentonite – a chemical that only Baghdad uses on anthrax – than the CIA leaks out through the White House that the anthrax has been treated with silica.

How hard can it be to determine once and for all the truth about the chemical composition of this anthrax?

It should not be too difficult.

The problem is the CIA wants to avoid at all cost implicating Iraq in this mess. Once again, the CIA has a political agenda and they 'massage' intelligence information to fit that agenda.

It is the CIA that has been pooh-poohing the Mohamed Atta visits to Prague to meet twice with Iraqi intelligence. The CIA leaks out that, because we do not know for certain what they talked about, "this is no smoking gun."

Oh, really?

Well, if Mohamed Atta had met with Timothy McVeigh – without anyone knowing the subject of their conversation – would that have been a "smoking gun"?

The CIA has failed us.

Their intelligence work is a failure.

They are only good at 'debunking.'

Let us hope our brave soldiers and airmen are not relying solely on this 'debunking' agency for their lives.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

War on Terrorism