[hga]

You're leaving out the storied concept of spies, double agents, etc., who can provide unique windows into a foreign country. Plus help the propagation of disinformation (e.g. it's a lot more effective when you know what your enemy fears). If there's a place for them in our national intelligence infrastructure, where should that be?

On the other hand I'll certainly agree that CIA analysis is poor at best, and note that it's particularly subject to politics (e.g. see the 2007 "Iran stopped their nuclear weapons program" analysis (not sure if it was from the CIA but the point holds)).

I'd close with noting that covert ops have their place. E.g. in denying the Soviets effective natural gas compressors (and therefore foreign exchange) for their pipelines to Western Europe. Technology embargoes forced them to roll their own, and we fed them bogus info which resulted in very poor results (as I recall a lot of failures and only being able to ship 1/2 the gas they'd intended).