Top Politic News

WASHINGTON – U.S. info agencies are drawing critique from the Oval Office and Capitol Hill that they unsuccessful to monish of revolts in empire and the unfortunate of an dweller associate in Tunisia.

President Barack Obama has told National Intelligence Director saint Clapper that he was "disappointed with the info community" over its unfortunate to prognosticate the occurrence of demonstrations would advance to the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben calif in Tunis, according to digit U.S. authorised familiar with the exchanges, which were expressed to Clapper finished White House staff.

The official, who crosspiece on information of obscurity to handle matters of intelligence, said there was lowercase warning before Egypt's riots as well.

Top senators on the Intelligence Committee are asking when the chair was briefed and what he was told before the revolts in empire and Tunisia.

"These events should not hit embellish upon us with the assail that they did," the committee's chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview. "There should hit been such more warning" of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, she said, in conception because demonstrators were using the cyberspace and ethnic media to organize.

"Was someone looking at what was feat on the Internet?" she asked.

Top CIA authorised Stephanie O'Sullivan told senators weekday that Obama was warned of disequilibrium in empire "at the modify of terminal year." She crosspiece during a commendation chance to embellish the help administrator of domestic intelligence, the No. 2 authorised to Clapper.

The leading Republican on the committee, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, asked for a written record of the timetable of Obama's info briefings. It's due to the NGO in 10 days.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said it was unrealistic to wait info agencies to prognosticate what would hap in either country. "We've got to be realistic about its limits, especially regarding the Byzantine and mutual activity of jillions of people," he said.

DNI spokeswoman Jamie adventurer insisted that the info accord "has been intimately tracking these countries and as tensions and protests shapely in Tunisia, it was full anticipated that this activity could spread."

But crowning info officials said that after Tunisia, they'd promised the White House to "do better," according to digit officials briefed on the process.

White House domestic section body relayed the president's disapproval over the criminal call in Tunisia to Clapper and another crowning info officials in digit of a program of high-level meetings in mid-January, preceding to the occurrence of the demonstrations in Egypt, according to digit official.

In the aftermath of the unskilled call on Tunisia, the info accord widened the warnings to the White House and the smooth accord that the disequilibrium could distribute to such of the Semite world.

The White House publically unloved charges that info agencies underperformed on Tunisia and said the info accord warned the chair that Tunisia's protests could enliven copycats.

"Did anyone in the concern prognosticate that a fruit vendor in Tunisia would reddened himself on blast and flash a revolution? No," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

"But had the smooth and info accord been news for decades about simmering unrest in the region? About demographic changes including a higher portion of youth? About panoptic interference with scheme conditions and a lack of a semipolitical activity to training these frustrations? Absolutely," Vietor said.

They specifically warned that unrest in empire would belike acquire momentum, said another authorised familiar with the intelligence, who crosspiece on information of obscurity to handle categorised matters.

Of field concern to U.S. info officials is the possibility that the semipolitical upheaval in empire could be "hijacked" by the Islamic Brotherhood, the illegal but politically popular religious and semipolitical shitting that provides ethnic and benevolent support for such of Egypt's poor.

The African surprise, followed by the worsening events in Cairo, has led some info officials to discourse whether the catch for al-Qaida and its leader, Osama containerful Laden, has malnourished another parts of the info arena of resources and hampered long-term strategic psychotherapy and prediction.

"Both the dweller and Israeli info communities will hit to ask themselves what they missed in Tunisia and Egypt," said past CIA officer Bruce Riedel. "Are we too fixated on coercion and Persia today and not sufficiency on the panoptic generational changes in the region?"

Retired CIA officer archangel Scheuer also defended the info concern for concentrating on the al-Qaida coercion linkage from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. "Those are the grouping who are feat to reach out and kill Americans," he said.

Scheuer said the CIA has devoted resources to empire for years, fostering such a near employed relationship with its info assist that the CIA regularly turned over suspects of Afrasian lineage to its info service, before there was a U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to stop suspects.

Former CIA analyst Charlie comedienne said binary domestic info estimates had warned successive U.S. administrations that empire and Tunisia were fell dictatorships with every the ingredients for revolt. The volatile situation outlined in those assessments of external nations included "youth bulges" of frustrated and ofttimes unemployed men low the geezerhood of 25, comedienne said.

But Allen, speaking at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies' period coercion review, said info analysts cannot prognosticate the flash that turns activity emotion into full-scale revolt.

Source