Intelligence failures

Over on Scoop, Paul Buchanan asks whether there have been intelligence failures over the Solomons and Timor Leste. In both cases, the New Zealand government seems to have been caught completely unprepared, which suggests in turn that our intelligence agencies - the SIS, External Assessments Bureau, and (in the case of the Solomons) the New Zealand Army, failed to give them warning. But its not as if the problems in those countries appeared from out of the blue or required James Bond style antics to predict; all they needed was someone on the ground to read the local papers and monitor the public mood and send reports back to Wellington. That's not exactly difficult, or even spying (its one of the things embassy staff are supposed to do - tell their home governments what is going on, and whether any of it is "interesting"). Unfortunately, it seems to be beyond the capabilities of our intelligence agencies, even in our own backyard, and even when we have people right there on the ground.

But I guess our intelligence agencies just have better things to do - like whipping up fear of domestic terrorism in a desperate play for funding, or sniffing around our universities to see if anybody is studying anything "dangerous" (like basic physics or biology). A risk of government collapse in a nearby country? Clearly not as important as the "threat" of people objecting to US foreign policy, or learning how to culture bacteria (a vital skill for the dairy industry, BTW)...

Scoop's Selwyn Manning calls for an inquiry to find out why our intelligence agencies have failed so consistently. I'll second that call. It might even give Parliament's new Intelligence and Security Committee something to do...