So maybe this isn't new news exactly, but this post by Juan Cole gets at a fundamental point in this whole business about "everyone thought X", or how it was "bad intelligence" that led us into war. Uh, no. We had lots of intelligence, and the administration chose to see certain things in it. That was their choice. And when they didn't get to see what they wanted to see (as in this case) they took other actions - like creating a whole Cheney-worldview intel shop for Doug Feith to run at the DOD. What's disconcerting is that this shows this kind of thing is still going on. And there's little reason to think this will end if Bush is reelected.
And of course this doesn't even get at the point that the intelligence leaders see is on the kinds of questions and topics they request information about. It's not like a desk oficer says "I should send this to the president!". So the questions that are asked have a great deal to do with the quality of information the president gets ... and this kind of behvaior suggests to me that we really should expect Bushand Cheney to ask the kinds of questions that will really keep them accurately informed about what's going on in the world.
Posted by armand at October 13, 2004 11:57 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics