Fighting terrorism with blurry vision; the latest teachings of Paul Wolfowitz, or, would the real terrorist please stand up clearly

[Jurriaan Bendien <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the armed forces, they teach you to handle a gun, and identify your
target carefully, before taking aim and shooting, but now Wolfowitz has a
new idea...

Posted on Mon, Jul. 28, 2003
Wolfowitz: U.S. Must Act on 'Murky' Info

WILLIAM C. MANN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's second-ranking official says the United States
must be prepared to act on less-than-perfect intelligence in a world where
the main threat is terror, even though information about terrorism is
inherently murky.
"If you wait until the terrorism picture is clear, you're going to wait
until after something terrible has happened," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"And we went to war, and I believe we are still fighting terrorists and
terrorist supporters in Iraq, in a battle that will make this country safer
in the future from terrorism." Making the rounds of television talk show,
Wolfowitz told "Fox News Sunday" that "Iraq now is the central battle in the
war on terrorism." He similarly linked the U.S.-led invasion and its
aftermath to President Bush's war on terror. At the same time, he emphasized
that intelligence dealing with terrorists is intrinsically "murky."

On CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on
the Armed Services Committee, said he was struck by Wolfowitz's use of the
word. "Boy, it sure didn't sound murky before the war," Levin said. "There
were clear connections, we were told, between al-Qaida (terrorists) and
Iraq. There was no murkiness, no nuance, no uncertainty about it at all. ...
That's the way it was presented to the American people."

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/6400489.htm

For biographical notes on Wolfowitz, see the US Department of Defence
http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/depsecdef_bio.html