US Intelligence Establishment on Castro

One of his last public acts as US National Intelligence director before he re-deployed to the State Department was Mr. John Negroponte’s appearance before the US Senate Intelligence Committee. The only seeming bomb shell that he handed out during that session was his authoritative 'disclosure' that Cuba’s President Fidel Castro’s death was imminent, in fact, a few months away from then. Negroponte’s ‘disclosure’ came a little after Mr. Castro disappeared from the public because of the ailment, which he is still recuperating from.

Contrary to Negroponte’s ‘disclosure’, Mr. Castro is still alive. The only thing that US intelligence got right was therefore the ailment, which up until recently kept Mr. Castro out of total circulation for 10 months in a row. Although Negroponte’s almost bogus disclosure didn’t make the media radar screen beyond the first few days, the truth remains that it doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the US intelligence establishment. This is especially in the light of the big intelligence failure over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, WMD program. If the circumstances had warranted it, the intelligence from which Negroponte derived the logic of his ‘disclosure’ from was actionable enough to inform critical policy decisions by the White House. As Iraq burns, the need for US policy makers to trust but verify every manner of intelligence from the US intelligence establishment before it can be used to support or justify serious foreign policy decisions cannot be over-emphasized.

There is indeed a difference between wishing death on Mr. Castro and predicting on the basis of hard intelligence that he would die within a specific time period. Now that Mr. Castro has defied the prediction of his death by the newest intelligence clearing house established by the US government in the wake of the intelligence failure over Iraq, where then does it place the US intelligence establishment on credibility?