BREMER, TENET AND NOW THE LITTLE FOLK

You may recall that Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet and Paul Bremer after it was clear that the intelligence on Iraq was terrible and that the occupation was botched. Now we find that this dysfunctional reward system extends down the hierarchy:

Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff WriterSaturday, May 28, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/AR2005052701618.html


Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The Army analysts concluded that it was highly unlikely that the tubes were for use in Iraq's rocket arsenal, a finding that bolstered a CIA contention that they were destined for nuclear centrifuges, which was in turn cited by the Bush administration as proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
The problem, according to the commission, which cited the two analysts' work, is that they did not seek or obtain information available from the Energy Department and elsewhere showing that the tubes were indeed the type used for years as rocket-motor cases by Iraq's military. The panel said the finding represented a "serious lapse in analytic tradecraft" because the center's personnel "could and should have conducted a more exhaustive examination of the question."