David Kay Quotes
We were bereft of any human intelligence—zero, nada, in terms of agents on the ground…. We had no answers.
David Kay, Chief Weapons Inspector, CIA, Disclosure that the CIA did not have any spies in Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Lessons Learned and Unlearned, Miller Center Report, Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring/Summer-2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The American Embassy in Berlin had wiretapped the telephone and telegraph wires of the German Foreign Ministry. The man who did that was hired by Secretary of State Lansing as the first employee of the new unit.
The President was complaining about the lack of intelligence on North Vietnam:
The first two would often interfere with the operations.
This was a critical shortcoming in that the NSA had the personnel for electronic intelligence. It was the major job of the CIA to place human agents—abroad—who could act as spies and/or recruit or manage spies.
This quotation comes as a major surprise to most people who perceive modern CIA as the MAJOR U.S. spying and covert action organization. It is a marvelous case study of agency “mission creep”.
David A. Kay (born c. 1940) is a weapons expert, political commentator, and senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. He is best known for his time as United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector following the first Gulf War and for leading of the Iraq Survey Group's search for weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Upon presentation of the Group's finding that there had been significant errors in pre-war intelligence concerning Iraq's weapons programs, Kay resigned. The ensuing controversy served as impetus for the formation of the Iraq Intelligence Commission.
