Asia Times: CIA: Predictions and self-fulfilling prophesies



	February 8, 2000	atimes.com

Editorials

CIA: Predictions and self-fulfilling prophesies

CIA chief George Tenet forecasts new turmoil in the Balkans by spring, a cooling of US relations with Russia, growing instability in the Middle East and a ''high potential'' for conflict between Taiwan and China. As he unveiled the US spy agency's annual review of global hot-spots, he also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, ''This country is at greater risk than it has ever been.'' The latter statement is plain nonsense, of course. We don't know George's age and don't care enough to search the Internet to find out, but surely he's old enough and hopefully has enough sense and historical perspective to realize that there were times during the US-Soviet Cold War nuclear standoff when mutual annihilation of the two powers was an imminent and real enough threat.

But leave that. The cookie factory and other US agencies have to justify their budgets and jack them up if possible. In that race most anything goes. What concerns us is that intelligence analysts' arm-chair predictions have a way of turning into self-fulfilling prophesies when governments and legislators they advise act defensively on their forecasts and take or enact measures making bad situations worse.

US-Russian relations undoubtedly will deteriorate further if the US continues to sanctimoniously insist that the Chechnya war is principally a human rights issue rather than recognizing Russia's strategic - including Caspian oil - issues in the conflict, and continues to lend a helping hand and encourage weapons deliveries to the Chechens and the construction of new oil pipelines bypassing Russian territory. And predicting more troubles in the Balkans and the Middle East is always a safe bet.

But the CIA hot-spots report singles out the high Taiwan-China conflict potential, and that's where it is at its hypocritical best. For the past several years the CIA, the Pentagon, and congressional committees have incessantly attempted to portray China as a villainous aggressor, arming itself to the teeth and recklessly spying on everything from US commercial to nuclear weapons secrets. We don't doubt for a moment that China is spying on the US any more than we doubt that the US is snooping on China. That's par for the course. We don't doubt either that China is attempting to modernize its by and large badly outmoded armed forces. Beijing defense officials have said as much loud and clear - so loud in fact that one can't help but suspect that they're having a hard time getting it done. But all that in and of itself is a far cry from the aggressive intentions imputed to ''Red China'' by the likes of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms or by Pentagon reports seeing a 100-strong barrage of - who knows? - nuclear-tipped short-range missiles flying across the Taiwan Strait and obliterating the island.

The latest US-China tiff has come as a result of passage by the US House of Representatives of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act which enlarges on the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and virtually jams all sorts of sophisticated military equipment down Taipei's throat. Is anyone surprised that this would heighten the Taiwan-China conflict potential? Not hardly, we should think; not even George Tenet. Perhaps he should have warned the Senate Armed Services Committee of the inevitability of that. But, alas, there was nothing of the sort in the record of his testimony.

Beijing, unfortunately ever ready to play tit-for-tat and never slow to pass up a bait, is sending its most sophisticated Russian-built Sovremenniy-class missile destroyer Hangzhou through the Taiwan Strait in response and the international press, boosting circulation ever on its mind, sees ''a major escalation of military tension in the region just six weeks before Taiwan goes to the polls to elect a new president''. (Australian Financial Review, February 4). So, CIA director Tenet has got what he predicted - and in a hurry.

Thankfully, Mr Clinton's White House has signalled its intention to veto the new Republican-sponsored Taiwan legislation and the whole affair may yet prove a storm in a teacup. Still, when minds (what few there are) in Washington and Beijing should focus on China's WTO entry and the obvious mutual and long-term benefit to be derived from that, yet another clinker has been thrown in the way - and perhaps not entirely unintentionally so in this US election year.

We have a suggestion for George Tenet and his spooks and analysts: make fewer predictions of trouble ahead or recommendations likely to bring it about. Concentrate instead on sussing out who is out to wreck US-China or US-Russia relations, predict how they might go about doing it, and poison the well for them before they go to it, by publicizing relevant findings or at least warning the president about such shenanigans. Let the CIA and other US intelligence agencies with their $30 billion budget become a force for improving rather than exacerbating international relations. Or if that's asking too much, why not just disband, as delightfully curmudgeonly Senator Patrick Moynihan has long suggested? It would save a good deal of taxpayer money and forestall the Aldrich Ames-type of embarrassments and threats to US security.