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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: carranza2 who wrote (139197)7/7/2004 6:52:28 PM
From: epicure  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
I did read Pollack's book. I don't happen to agree with Pollack, although Pollack doesn't even always agree with Pollack.

If you read this piece by Pollack, you will see his analysis of Saddam's actions regarding WMD's- and why Saddam wasn't more honest about their destruction. Pollack posits some very logical reasons for Saddam's actions- hardly the reasoning of a bizarre decision maker. He also makes a number of statements that make it clear that Saddam was deterrable.

Pollack does seem to imply that our intelligence community made some bizarre decisions, and used poor judgment- I happen to agree with him about that:

"When the inspectors suddenly left, the various intelligence agencies were caught psychologically and organizationally off balance.they began to trust sources that they would previously have had UNSCOM vet. If a defector came out of Iraq after 1998, the CIA had to gauge his credibility by comparing his account with those of other defectors—who might be unreliable or just unproven—or by checking it against whatever they could glean from satellites and other indirect sources. With so little to go on, intelligence agencies believed many reports that now seem deeply suspect. "

theatlantic.com
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