Tet.. bay of pigs... the WMD arguement was a black eye too.. but not sure how much of that is the intelligence agencies faults or misguided, self-imposed blind leadership.
You're right that they didn't have proper dispersal positions, with sand bags, berms, etc. That's on MacArthur's air commander (whose name I forget) and ultimately MacArthur.CanyonAg77 said:As I recall, they didn't even have the planes dispersed, nor ready for combat, etc. The pilots should have been sleeping under the wings, and every gun position with a crew 24/7.Quote:
I don't think the attack on the Philippines was an intelligence failure. All they were told was that Pearl Harbor was attacked and not when the attack would come. The air force launched planes and some were on patrol. Shortly after they landed the attack came.
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That's because, even without Pearl Harbor, the Pacific Fleet was not going to come rushing to defend the Philippines. First of all, it would have been extremely difficult to do, requiring them to fight through all those Japanese occupied island chains in the central Pacific - you know, the ones that it took 15 or so months to push through, starting in late 1943, when the Essex class carriers started arriving? And attempting this would have been exactly what the IJN wanted the USN to try - it would have allowed them to attrit the U.S. fleet all the way across the Pacific from those island bases, then smash it when it arrived in the Philippines worn out and without a secure base or lines of supply, much the way the IJN smashed the Russian fleet at Tsushima 35 years before.
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That said, MacArthur's ground defense plan was for crap. He had nowhere near the amount of troops or equipment required to defend the whole island group or even Luzon. However, had he properly prepared for the defense of Bataan, his forces there could have held out for much, much longer. Whether they could have held out long enough for help to arrive is open for debate, but not likely.
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When he became commander in the Philippines, MacArthur's massive ego kept him from working within this plan, because now he was in the PI, not DC, and whatever he was doing was the most important thing in the whole war, to hell with the plans.
I agree there is a fair amount of lapses in our intelligence about the Taliban. However, as one who did lots of the CIA's bidding in the early days of Nam, I think in Afghanistan it's a lot of they don't know what to do - or aren't prepared to do it. Sadly, it's a less bitter pill to say they fooled our intelligence than we don't know what to do, or even worse, we can't do anything about it.Eliminatus said:
Not sure if the scale matches "worst", but this current development in Afghanistan has to be one of the better examples of systemic intelligence failure in living history. Force estimates, mobility, motivation, integration, coordination....we have been horrendously off on all of that to date about the Taliban. You don't even have to read between the lines to see that we have been caught completely flatfooted as a nation but the developments in the past 48 hours.
Thoughts?
- also Gen. George Crook failed to warn advancing US forces at the Little Big Horn that Lakota warriors had changed tactics. It was believed the Lakota would scatter in multiple directions once engaged. However, at the Battle of Rosebud eight days earlier, General George Crook's column discovered the Indians were willing to fight and take casualties. This info wasn't passed on to Gen. Terry (Custer)Rabid Cougar said:He knew exactly what was down there. He was just too big to fail in his own mind.BQ_90 said:
Little Big Horn on the micro scale
That one is on the politicians and not the intelligence community. Good friend was an inspector going into Iraq. Said in 2002 there were no WMD and the administration was committed to invasion in early 2003. He called it 100%.agrams said:
Tet.. bay of pigs... the WMD arguement was a black eye too.. but not sure how much of that is the intelligence agencies faults or misguided, self-imposed blind leadership.
Yeah, but what did the intelligence community actually tell the administration? In my career I've noticed that the message gets changed a whole lot from the line level people by the time it gets relayed by the intelligence leadership to the politicians.Old RV Ag said:That one is on the politicians and not the intelligence community. Good friend was an inspector going into Iraq. Said in 2002 there were no WMD and the administration was committed to invasion in early 2003. He called it 100%.agrams said:
Tet.. bay of pigs... the WMD arguement was a black eye too.. but not sure how much of that is the intelligence agencies faults or misguided, self-imposed blind leadership.
He was too busy fishing.BQ78 said:
Crook was too busy trying to extricate himself to send messages to Custer or Terry,
This. Joe set a limit of 600 troops against military advice, which meant the Kabul airport was the only option (vs. Kandahar). There was no military intelligence failure, it was a leadership failure, pure and simple. Oh, and we apparently had the suicide bomber targeted but didn't take the shot. Typical Joe.BQ78 said:
Well if you believe the reports this morning, it wasn't an intelligence failure just a case of Joe didn't care.
Wasn't it determined that an FBI agent forwarded intelligence warning about the eventual attack that was, apparently, ignored in Washington?Mr. AGSPRT04 said:
9/11