IMO, theres a good way to tell if someone knows anything about intelligence. If all they talk about is either "spys" or "imagery satellites" then they know nothing other than what they saw in the movies.

The guy in this article seems to know just a little, since he refered to what he was talking about as "human intelligence" at the very last paragraph, as if it was an afterthough/correction. The whole time he was really refereing to only a small part of the total intelligence community.

It didn't help the authors credibility at all with this statement at the very begining "It is already clear that America is losing the intelligence war in Iraq, for the same reasons it lost in Somalia. The rocket attack on the al-Rashid hotel while Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was present, the downing of a Chinook helicopter with 16 deaths, and related incidents suggest that the Iraqi resistance has infiltrated the American command."

- The attack while Wolfowitz I am pretty sure was quincidence. If they were really targeting wolfowitz, then they could have waited until he was coming or going OR saturated the hotel with rockets to ensure a greater succes rate. But the way this attack was done suggested it was a random terror attack.

- Chinook downing was merely a case of "hey look, theres a target, lets fire on it"

- Related incidents? The author needed a third point but obviously didn't have one.

Regardless I read on and despite twisting reality around (routine traffic intercepts: no one ever has enough people or resources to intercept all traffic of an opposing force), I agree with the author on a few cultural notes, but most of it is purely fact twisting and presenting opinion as fact while the author really has no clear idea of what the real situation is.

a further note:
"Army Special Forces makes an effort to teach languages to its personnel, but anyone who has met these fresh-faced, well-meaning young people has the impression that they are much better in a gunfight than in a war of ideas"

The armed forces does a damn good job of training our special forces at a place called DLI (Defense Language Institute) in Monterey Ca. Where they sometimes spend a year or more eating, sleeping and breathing a language. People who come out of there speak the language they were trained in very well. And they use thier newly learned language to train foreign armies, no so much run around and shoot things (thats what Rangers are for).