CIA: Our Mideast Forecasts Kind of Suck

Twitter and the mainstream press are filled with rumors that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak may be forced to step down as early as tonight. What does CIA Director Leon Panetta think? All he could tell a Congressional panel on Thursday morning is that he, like them, is relying on the media for his info. According to those press reports, he said, there’s a “strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening.”


Unsurprisingly, that didn’t satisfy the House intelligence committee’s leaders, who want to know how a spy apparatus that costs $80 billion annually didn’t forecast the Egyptian uprising. As spymasters have said repeatedly over the past two weeks, intelligence officials have reported for “decades” that unrest brews in the Mideast. “But we are not clairvoyant,” said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.

WIRED
______________________________________________________________________
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since March 1993, that reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California.