Rumsfeld...Grand Poobah of Intel

I don't know which worries me more...That there is a secret organization gathering intel for the Pentagon or that Rummy has control over it.

The fact that the organization has been operating for about two years does nothing to inspire confidence. We need only look back to the days of Rummy's Office of Special Services and their pro-administration spin on the intel prior to the invasion of Iraq to see where this will take us. It will take us into another reckless, feckless round of foregin adventurism which will make Iraq look like a Sunday picnic.

And then there's the issue of the commander of this little group of spies. Colonel George Waldrup, that's "GW" to his friends, has no background in intel.The Army reservist, who worked for INS before his reserve activation, has most recently been responsible for security and transportation for the teams searching for WMD's in Iraq. How this qualifies him for such a sensitive post is beyond me. It seems likely that he's a friend of someone in the administration, and as we've seen, this adminstrition place a higher premium on loyalty than on competence.

The likely end of this little boondoggle will, at a best, be an incident which greatly embarasses the administration. At worst it will mean a loss of life that will shock us all. Either way, the administration has shown little inclination to be moved by such matters, and we're all the worse for it.