U.S. misled by bogus pre-war intelligence?

[Gman]

Allied agencies investigating possibly fake defectors, data
BOB DROGIN
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - Frustrated at the failure to find Saddam Hussein's suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, allied intelligence agencies have launched a major effort to determine if they were victims of bogus Iraqi defectors who planted disinformation to mislead the West before the war.

The goal, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, "is to see if false information was put out there and got into legitimate channels and we were totally duped on it." He added, "We're reinterviewing all our sources of information on this. This is the entire intelligence community, not just the U.S."

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I see... so Saddam sent out agents to trick us into thinking he had WMD's so we'd invade Iraq....

Once again we get an answer to the question of "just how stupid do they think we are?"

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6635813.htm

[FlashHarry]

1. Bwahahahahahaha!

You mean their 'sources' could have had an agenda? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

[bemildred]

11. Todays NSS (No Shit Sherlock) award.

[qb]

2. I wonder how many brainstorming sessions it took

to come up with this whopper. If they spin any faster their heads will explode.

[ewagner]

3. To borrow a phrase

...from my freeperish brother...."this dog ain't gonna hunt.."

Intelligence types don't count on single sources, or for that matter, several sources from the same group. They carefully seek confirmation through all kinds of means to make sure the information is accurate.

If defectors gave false, unverified information the people responsible for using it were the OSP types, not the professionals in the intelligence community. Worse yet, the decision makers at the very top were unprofessional and intellectually dishonest enough to use it.

This is almost laughable.

[ixion]

4. yeah, but what about what Ray-Gun said?

Trust but Verify. Seems like they're not taking they're own repuke advice and VERYIFYING... or maybe they are verifying and don't like what they find, so they ignore it. Yes, that seems to be the case here, IMO.

[budmo]

5. Iraq had a death wish?

I too am amazed!! Just how stupid do they think we are? Yet there will be plenty who needto believe the Bushies...and we all know the main stream media will hardly confront them on this..so we'll probably be wittness to a whole huge cycle of ridiculus White House propaganda!
The candidates need to jump on this right away. I bet Dean will. The other Washington ones most likely will play wait and see.

[atreides1]

6. The Truth...

The truth is the intel clowns were told by the WH what to report. And
now they are trying to place the blame on someone else. But that's the
way this administration works, they screw up, it's someone else's fault.

[pippin]

8. stupid is as stuipid

"The truth is the intel clowns were told by the WH what to report. And
now they are trying to place the blame on someone else." yup, i agree--and they think they can foist another fairy tale on the public. besides, they're so stupid they don't realize a spin like this STILL makes them look stupid: what kind of "intelligence" is it that can't sort out the real stuff from the planted stuff? gimme a break! :evilfrown:

[damnraddem]

7. "Here's my plan, Uday, we'll lure the Americans into a quagmire here!"

Ohh, those sneaky Baathists! LOL!

How about instead studying how Cheney planted false info into U.S. intelligence?

[kstewart33]

9. Oh, now I get it

It was all Saddam's fault. This is soooooooo pathetic.

[wryter2000]

10. I think they mean

I think they mean Chalabi and his ilk lied to get us to invade.

[wryter2000]

12. It's still stupid

And you're right, the professionals wouldn't have relied on Chalabi. But I'm sure that OSP took what they wanted to hear and ran with it. They have no respect for truth.

[maggrwaggr]

13. blaming the victim

said the rapist: "But her sister told me she wanted to sleep with me"

[BlackRhino]

14. It's so incredibly stupid, it just might work!

This latest development in the Bush (mis)administration's quest to find a fall-guy to blame for all the LIES they told to get a critical mass of Americans to support (or ignore) a pre-emptive attack on a nation that didn't do squat to us has GOT to represent some kind of political nadir.

Are they getting desperate? Are the gnawing doubts about this admin's forthrightness becoming more of an albatross than they would ever willingly let on?

YOU be the judge!

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6635813.htm

[trapper914]

15. Reading between the lines here...

...sounds like David Kay's WMD report may be pretty thin. This seems very pre-emptive. No way they come out looking good here.

Saddam had reason to keep his neighbors guessing...but I can't imagine he would deliberately try to mislead the U.S. this way. His was a balancing act, and actions such as those portrayed in this piece would throw everything out of balance.

[Sinistrous]

16. "bogus Iraqi defectors"

No. Not "bogus defectors". Rather, real defectors who had an axe to grind vs. Saddam, and who fed the spooks the words they (the defectors) hoped would hurt Saddam the most. The spooks failed because their enthusiasm to tell PNAC/bush what he wanted to hear blinded them to their responsibility to check the data and the sources.

[madfloridian]

17. Robert Baer was just going along with this theory on Zahn's show.

I was shocked.
Sometime posted to my post that Buzzflash will be interviewing him on this topic.
I am sorry, but I always thought we did our own intelligence thing.

[killbotfactory]

18. They weren't misled

They knew it was bullshit the whole time. Everyone knows defectors are horribly unreliable.

[alcuno]

19. Rush said that this was a bogus story.

Huh.