Dilbert_X wrote:
FEOS wrote:
Except he specifically did NOT use the Curveball intel in his UN presentation...because he knew it was questionable.
According to you, not according to the person who was actually in the room with Powell.
Kay wasn't in the room with Powell.
And it's also according to books written about it and the transcript itself.
Nothing to see here...
Dilbert_X wrote:
FEOS wrote:
You've got mountains of analyses saying one thing. And a single outlier saying something different.
No the outlier says the same thing, its just we know the source is compromised in that one case. We don't know much about the sources in the rest of it.
We do know about the sources for the rest of it, as they were technical sources. They aren't "compromised" in the way a human source is. Machines don't lie.
Dilbert_X wrote:
I'm not the one who is so focused on a single intel source that I can't/won't see the bigger picture.
I'm not focused on a single source, I've said from the outset ALL the intel was crap - which it was.
Curveball is just a provable example of the blatant way in which the intel was misused. We only know of this because Curveball's evidence was gathered by a party other than the CIA.
The CIA deals with human intel. If there was a breakdown in human intel (like Curveball), then there is only one agency and only one source/method called into question--that is the CIA and human intelligence. And guess what the 9/11 commission found as a contributing factor to that particular breakdown? The complete gutting of the US HUMINT program by the Clinton administration.
The veracity (or lack thereof) of a single HUMINT source has absolutely nothing to do with the veracity (or lack thereof) of imagery and signals intelligence--which CIA doesn't do.
Dilbert_X wrote:
The people who gathered the intel knew he was a liar and didn't believe the intel.
The CIA knew the people who gathered the intel knew he was a liar and didn't believe the intel.
The information was presented to Powell as fact, and if I remember correctly used by Duhbya in a state of the union address, presented to the American people and the world as fact.
Again, you are talking about a single source. From HUMINT. Which is NEVER used by itself without some kind of corroborating intel. Yet you lump all of the intel collected over a dozen years in with that single HUMINT source. Because you think it proves your point. The only thing your line of argument proves is your utter lack of understanding about intelligence sources, methods, and analysis.
Dilbert_X wrote:
How so? How could anyone fuck up so badly, unless there was an agenda?
Because other, non-HUMINT sources pointed to the same conclusions as that
single source. Over a dozen years of near constant collection...collection from well before the Bush Administration could have possibly manipulated it.
Dilbert_X wrote:
No I don't believe the 'deception plan' crap, intel completely outside that was also manipulated.
1. Doesn't really matter if you don't believe it. That's about the same as you saying you don't believe the sun is hot. You not believing a fact doesn't make it less of a fact.
2. See above. Much of the intel collected--that established patterns of behavior at certain sites that corresponds with an active program--was collected and analyzed long before the Bush administration came into power. How could they possibly have manipulated it if they weren't even there at the time?
Dilbert_X wrote:
Enough senior people at the heart of the program have said the same about the way the rest of the intel was gathered things to cover their asses that I'm more than prepared to believe the rest of it was misused, mishandled distorted exaggerated etc in the same way.
Fixed. You completely neglect the self-preservation actions being taken by those people.
Dilbert_X wrote:
From what I hear there was precious little apart from Curveball, the Chalabists and a few ambiguous telephone intercepts.
You hear what you want to hear. There was a mountain of corroborated intel outside of HUMINT that supported the pre-war assessment. And as for "ambiguous": People saying "don't say 'nerve gas' again on this phone" is fairly unambiguous...particularly after something was said about "moving the nerve gas before the UN inspectors show up" (I'm paraphrasing).
Go back and read the UN transcript. The HUMINT stuff was a very, very small part of the overall intel sources used, so your characterization is completely wrong. But don't let that stand in your way.