Did President Obama and Secretary Gates activate missile defense last week based on faulty intelligence or no intelligence?

So after nearly a full week listening to a tantalizing parade of defense experts discuss the ifs and maybes stemming from Japanese news reports that claimed North Korea was preparing to launch a Taepodong-2 long-range missile in the direction of the U.S. state of Hawaii, U.S. officials are now calling the whole mess a false alarm.  Well, sort of.

As reported by CNN.com Wednesday afternoon, unnamed U.S. officials are now claiming that the intelligence community does not believe that the Kim Jong Il and crew are or were preparing to take such provocative action:

The U.S. intelligence community does not believe North Korea intends to launch a long-range missile in the near future, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN, despite reports in Japanese media citing intelligence that the North Korean regime intends to fire a missile toward Hawaii on July 4.

Shortly after that report, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was deploying defensive measures around Hawaii.

But a recent warning to mariners issued by North Korea suggests the country only intends short- and medium-range missile tests, according to one U.S. intelligence official.

That’s all well and good, and thank you very much, but what about the billions of dollars in high-tech missile defense hardware that was hustled into the seas around the 50th state?  Surely we have to assume that Defense Secretary Robert Gates would not have spent resources that are currently as precious as platinum to provide a deterrent to something that hadn’t been vetted by at least two out of three among Defense Intelligence, the CIA, or the NSA.

Only two assessments can be thus made of the White House reaction to what has now been unofficially called by official sources as a rumor.  Either the White House and the Pentagon were given faulty intelligence on which the decision to waste an incredible amount of money was based, or the decision was based only on a news report in the Japanese media combined with a dash of wild-eyed speculation around the Oval Office.  Take your pick, Barry.

The Pentagon is circling the wagons around Secretary Gates, but don’t expect the mainstream media to point a finger at his boss.  Attacking presidents who make appear to make decisions about using the military based on flawed or nonexistent intelligence is a play the press corps reserves for Republican commanders-in-chief fighting a war against Islamic terror.

###

Popularity: 1% [?]