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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (100797)	6/9/2003 1:20:55 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The people who run the intelligence orgs aren't the ones complaining. They're keeping their upper lips stiff and standing by their man, which is what they are supposed to do. The people complaining are lower in the ranks, and they are saying that the statements made at the top did not reflect the information they sent on. That's a very unusual thing: intel workers at that level are supposed to keep their mouths shut and let the boss do the talking Um, that's how the leaking game is played in Washington. If the boss said it, it would be on the record and he would have to face the music. The actual leaker is always lower level and "on background". Will you admit that it was probably "overplayed" because it was the the argument most likely to rally domestic support behind the war? Well yes, for that reason, and because it was the most likely to persuade the Security Council, which most Americans seem to care about. As I've said before, you always find certain arguments overplayed in political controversies. The Europeans are overplaying the supposed health hazards of GMO food, for which their is no evidence, because food scare arguments are the most likely to rally their domestic audience. As for the arguments for going into Iraq, I believed Ken Pollack's case and I still do. We will find out whether the WMDS were destroyed, hidden or moved to Syria. I would bet that it was some combination of all three. I mean, we know he had them; am I supposed to believe that they all vanished in a puff of smoke just because we didn't find any in the last two months? The issue, it seems to me, is that it increasingly seems that intelligence was deliberately cherrypicked, above the level where intelligence is normally gathered and interpreted, to support a politically convenient conclusion. If you are seriously interested in figuring out what to believe, and not just looking for a good political argument, it strikes me that it's way too early to reach this conclusion.