To: Suma who wrote (228292 ) 4/8/2005 9:52:00 AM From: Peter Dierks Respond to Thanks. I had never realized that AlterNet was out there. It may even be to the left of Barbara Streisand. She complained that the far left biased former mainstream media was too conservative. The story lost any credibility when it was published by them.It was believed because it fit the preconceptions of those policy makers. it’s being taken as conventional wisdom that there really wasn’t any pressure by policy makers on the analytical process itself. And that’s just simply not true. It’s simply not true because analysts, generally, are like anyone else. They are concerned about their careers, their futures. Many of them are ambitious. If they understand that a dissenting opinion against the conventional policy wisdom is heard, that it’s going to affect their careers. There was a chilled environment in which to express any kind of opposite opinion. Well, Ambassador Wilson publicly refuted the claims — particularly the 16 words in the President’s State of the Union address that the Iraqis were trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Niger. North Korea is an example where we don’t know in the U.S. government how many weapons they may have. There are estimates which range from four — which is the last one I’ve seen at the CIA — to 14, which comes out of DIA. That’s a huge disparity in estimate. And it just really tells you that we just don’t have solid information. And when you don’t, how do you devise a rational policy to deal with those countries.
