Why ? US fails to detect the Syrian/Iranian(?)/NoKo Plutonium weapons plant

The answer in purple below is so disgusting it's breathtaking.

Gertz:

Intel failure in Syria raises questions: Can U.S. monitor proliferation?

U.S. intelligence agencies failed to detect the secret Syrian nuclear facility built with North Korean assistance until the factory was almost complete, according to U.S. officials.

Maybe we should be spying on Israel to learn what they learn, if we can't raise our own capabilities???

The failure is the latest in a string of intelligence failures and raises questions about whether U.S. intelligence agencies can adequately monitor the spread of weapons of mass destruction, supposedly one of the highest national security priorities for the United States.

In 2003 we failed to be accurate about Iraq, now we are failing again and all these things are critical. Why have heads not been rolling? Why has George Bush ACCEPTED such incompetence?

An image that U.S. intelligence officials said shows a Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help. AFP/US Gov.

A senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters on the Syria-North Korea nuclear cooperation stated that the facility located on the Euphrates River near al Kibar had been under surveillance since 2001 and that reports indicated Syrian-North Korean cooperation.

"We received indications in '05 that the Syrians and North Koreans were involved in a project in the Dayr az Zawr region of eastern Syria, but again, no specific information on the nature or the exact location of the work," the official said, noting that suspicions that the cooperation was "nuclear-related" surfaced in 2003.

Despite the indications, U.S. intelligence did not learn conclusively that the facility was a nuclear reactor plant until the spring of 2007, only months before the facility was to be completed.

Oh and we don't know conclusively about Arak and Natanz, either.

"The information included photographs of the interior and the exterior of the building located in Dayr az Zawr showing key features of the reactor," the official said.

The indications that the reactor would be used for nuclear weapons included a lack of infrastructure to produce electricity.

Does the output of 5400 P2 centrifuges in Iran match up to the electrical production need of the nuclear generating stations now being built?

"Internal photographs of the reactor vessel under construction shows that it's a gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactor similar in technology and configuration to the Yongbyon reactor," the official said.

Israel scored the intelligence coup of getting inside the reactor and the photographs led the Israelis to conduct the Sept. 6 bombing raid that destroyed the facility.

U.S. intelligence agencies were biased against accepting intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear reactor because of the intelligence liaison relationship between the CIA and Syrian intelligence, ties that officials said had come to dominate not just intelligence relations but diplomatic relations as well.

Are we really so foolish and incompetent?
Are we?