The Committee for the Preservation of the Military-Industrial Complex

The classic case of CIA red teaming is the "Team B" exercise in 1976, toward the end of Gerald Ford's presidency. A group of hawkish defense analysts were complaining that the CIA was far too dovish in its analysis of the Soviet nuclear threat. George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director at the time, reluctantly agreed to let them set up a Team B to examine the same raw intelligence data from a different angle?it would just be an interesting exercise, he was assured?and soon regretted the indulgence. Team B concluded that the Soviets were developing charged-particle-beam missile defenses, had bigger and more accurate warheads, were spending a lot more money on offensive warfare, and intended to launch a disarming first strike against U.S. nuclear forces. Team B's leaders then leaked their findings to the press, and, when Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, used the resulting stories to bash every effort at arms control and d?tente. In 1980, Ronald Reagan adopted the attacks as his own and hired many of its authors or popularizers as high-ranking defense officials.

In retrospect, the Team B report (which has since been declassified) turns out to have been wrong on nearly every point, while the CIA's reports in those same years look pretty good.

One of the original members of Team B, Paul Wolfowitz, is now the Assistant Secretary of Defense. Richard Perle, until recently the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and an influential force on American foreign policy, helped to set up Team B. I guess being wrong "on nearly every point" didn't really hurt their careers much.

Key members of Team B were also members of another organization, the Committee on the Present Danger which also counted Ronald Reagan among its membership. He went on to a pretty successful careeer himself. The CPD was a bipartisan committee which picked up where Team B left off and lobbied relentlessly on behalf of the conclusions that this team of "experts" had reached. When Reagan became president, a number of CPD members joined his administration. The ultimate result was an increase in defence spending of a trillion and a half dollars during the Reagan years that everyone was convinced was necessary to counter a threat that was vastly overstated and ended up collapsing in on itself. The CPD in collaboration with Team B fuelled an arms race that turned out to be largely unnecessary.

The reason for this little walk down memory lane is that I learned today (via Bump) that the Committee on the Present Danger has been resurrected. Actually this will be CPD's third incarnation since it was originally formed in the 50's and then reformed in the 70's to serve as the conduit for Team B's bogus intelligence.

This time around the CPD is again bipartisan, at least superficially. The Honorary Co-Chairs are Republican Senator Jon Kyl and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. To start things off with a bang, so to speak, Kyl and Lieberman wrote an op-ed that was published in yesterday's Washington Post to explain the rationale for coming together at this particular time. After a couple of glowing paragraphs about how successful the invasion of Iraq is and how Iraqis are now "standing proud and free", they get down to business.

The leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties have so far stood firm in their commitment to finish the job in Iraq and to fight to victory the war on terrorism. But that bipartisan consensus is coming under growing public pressure and could fray in the months ahead. Although the tide is turning in the war on terrorism, a political undertow in this country could wash out our recent gains. We must not let this happen.

Sorry, guys, but no. What's "fraying" is the bipartisan consensus that George Bush's war in Iraq had anything to do with the War on Terror™ because after months of investigations and committee hearings, the bipartisan consensus is that there was no operational relationship between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. What little contact there may have been bore no fruit. Saddam had nothing to with 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with defeating Al Qaeda.

And that political undertow? What it threatens to wash out is the possibility of Bush's second term because the tide isn't turning. The incidence of terrorism is up in the last few years, bin Laden remains at large and Iraq is as big a mess now as it was before the handover of "sovereignty". And if Bush loses in November, who will champion the immense military budgets, particularly the missile defense program, and the enduring military presence in Iraq? John Kerry may, but I suspect what we're seeing here is the hawks hedging their bets by putting together a lobby group that will be up and running come the next inauguration day.

Our committee Co-Chairs provide a bit of history on the organization, which doesn't read quite the same as the history I've provided above, and then get to their mission statement.

In this third incarnation, we intend to focus the committee on the present danger our generation faces: international terrorism from Islamic extremists and the outlaw states that either harbor or support them. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks awoke all Americans to the capabilities and brutality of our new enemy, but today too many people are insufficiently aware of our enemy's evil worldwide designs, which include waging jihad against all Americans and reestablishing a totalitarian religious empire in the Middle East.

Outlaw states. Evil designs. It sounds like a George Bush SOTU address. There's a bit more comparing the threat of Islam Islamic extremists to the communist menace and mentioning freedom and security a couple of times, and then they get to the money quote.

In this war, our enemies do not distinguish between Democrats and Republicans. All Americans are the targets of their hate, because all Americans share the values they detest, the purpose that has defined America since the founders declared our independence -- to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And there it is. The terrorists are targeting Americans because of American values. Americans are attacked just for being Americans so there's no point in trying to understand any more than that. "They hate our freedoms."

Can't we put this one to rest finally? Yes, there are murderous fanatics out there who are likely impossible to reason with and who pose a threat. But they don't attack Americans because of their "values". They attack Americans because they want America to change its foreign policy. And while they may be capable of committing a fair amount of mayhem, they don't threaten the "freedom and security" of the United States of America. They don't have that much power.

Even if you agree with American foreign policy you don't have to be a brilliant military tactician to figure out that if you're facing a threat, you'd best understand the nature of it as thoroughly as possible. The better your understanding of it, the better equipped you are to protect against it. Don't underestimate it, but don't overestimate it either. And understand the enemy's goals so you can better predict their actions. But these two champions of freedom first tell us that too many are "insufficiently aware" of the enemy's designs and then repeat the same old platitudes designed to obscure, not inform. If you can keep the threat hazy and ill-defined, you can more easily promote the idea of endless war.

The effect of the last incarnation of the CPD was to scare the crap out of people in support of a radical increase in military spending at the expense of almost everything else. So far this version looks pretty much the same. They might have been better served by coming up with a new name, but since the message is so familiar I guess it wouldn't have made that much difference.

Further reading: a June 30th article in The Hill written when the group was still in formation. There's some information here on the players but the policy is a little sketchy. The WaPo op-ed doesn't add much to that picture other than: be afraid, give us your tax dollars and don't ask questions because the enemy is just evil.