Intelligence means "smarts." It also means information and the organizations that gather it. More than $30 billion is spent each year by the FBI, CIA, NSA and other American intelligence gathering agencies, nonetheless, 911 caught us completely off guard. Two years later, no one is yet identified as having failed in their duty to keep us informed... 

For a solid year before the invasion of Iraq, we were told again and again and again that Saddam Husein had "weapons of mass destruction." And then on the very eve of war, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the UN with a dizzying array of spy satellite photos and intelligence reports documenting the nature of the threat.

Hundreds of suspect sites were identified, and we were assured that Iraq would use its "weapons of mass destruction" on our troops sent to remove the threat hanging over our heads.

As it turned out, however, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of any kind were used by Iraq, and in the two months since the war, none have been found. When some suggest the government may have altered the intelligence assessments to sell us on war, the charge is vigorously denied by the president, his administration, the CIA and the other intelligence agencies.

However, our intelligence agencies, just 18 months after failing to predict the most deadly attack the country ever suffered, provided a bogus rationale for us to attack a sovereign nation. 

And Attorney General Ashcroft continues to ask, and receive, more and more power to watch, arrest and imprison based on information from intelligence agencies that either do not know what they are doing or are being manipulated for political purposes. 

Before the attack on Iraq the UN repudiated our actions and the world was convulsed by demonstrations. The American people, by a bare majority, grudgingly gave the go-ahead for the invasion because of the intelligence, now proved false, that we were in danger.

Why then is there now no sustained outcry? One reason is because the news media, over the years, has largely abandoned its traditionally critical, watchdog role, and for the most part is content to read us the government's press releases. Huge business conglomerates dominate the media, and the Federal Communication Commission, which is headed by Michael Powell (son of the Secretary of State) this week granted them even more power.

The new FCC rules "permit a single company to own one newspaper, three television stations and as many as eight radio stations in a single city... Even though the FCC announced in September that it would rewrite the rules, Powell held only one public hearing on his proposed changes.... And it was not until last week that the major television stations held a single story on the issue. Few newspapers or local television stations bothered to provide any coverage. No wonder that a recent public opinion poll found nearly 75% of the public had no idea media ownership rules were being revamped."  (Juan Gonzalez in the 6/3/03 NY Daily News)