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HUMINT is a critical asset which takes many years to cultivate, but Jimmy Carter and Stansfield Turner, with their Halloween Massacre, practically dismantled our programs in favor of more electronic means.
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It actually goes back to the
Church Committee that was convened during the Ford administration as a result Nixon's abuses of the intel agencies:
In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed, together with recommendations for reform, some of which were put in place.
I think many Americans would be pleased to know that we stopped assassinating foreign leaders and operating in other illegal manners. Perhaps you dont agree and would prefer that our intel agencies operate unchecked.
Sure you can blame Carter...but blame Reagan was well...The fact that Reagan "cut and ran" (terms the right likes to use) after the worst terrorist attack against US citizens to that point (200+ marines killed in barracks in Lebanon) and left the impression that the US would not respond to terrorist attacks might also have contributed to future attacks.
And the fact is irrefutable that Bush withheld from Congress and the American people that there was dissenting intel re: Saddam's nuclear/bio capabilities.