By the time CIA Director George Tenet arrived at his post on July 11, 1997, ” the agency’s Clandestine Service had reached a state of atrophy, largely as a result of the post-Cold War budget cuts; the collapse of its longtime target, the Soviet Union; and a shift to massive technical collection by imagery and eavesdropping satellites. …Not only had the Clandestine Service withered in size, for many years, its performance had also been rapidly spiraling downward. …it also had no useful spies in Iraq prior to or during the first Gulf War.”
– James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Page 129