Lack of Intelligence

Most Democrats were relieved, I suppose, when Nancy Pelosi finally picked Sylvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, to chair the House Intelligence Committee. Pelosi passed over the most senior Democrat, Jane Harman, reportedly because Harman had not challenged the Bush Administration strongly enough on its (mis)use of intelligence in the Iraq War--though many suspect that Pelosi's longstanding animus towards her fellow Californian was the main motivation. Pelosi's second option, the next most senior Democrat, Alcee Hastings, is an embarassment: Hastings somehow managed to get elected to the House after being impeached as a federal judge by the Senate and convicted by the House for corruption and perjury. Reyes was the third option, and he seems like a nice guy--but not terribly well-versed in intelligence issues. Jeff Stein, of Congressional Quarterly, has been doing a wonderful job of exposing the ignorance of American policymakers about fundamental aspects of the Middle East. He reveals that Reyes didn't know that Al Qaeda is Sunni rather than Shiite, or that Hezbollah is Shiite.

Actually Reyes is ahead of several others Stein has talked to: At least he knows that the Sunni/Shiite division is significant. Two Republicans on the Intelligence Committee didn't seem to understand the distinction when Stein interviewed them in the fall. And Stein reports that a "reliable source" claims President Bush himself was unaware of the possibility that a Sunni/Shia civil war could spring up in the chaos of post-invasion Iraq.