Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Day of the Serial Fabricator

Edward Jay Epstein shows why MoDo should not try to write about intelligence failures.
Doth Dowd protest too much? As it turns out, she has a a most compelling reason for scorning the Commission: its findings expose her own repeated misrepresentations of the event.


He also cuts to the heart of the problem of Iraq intelligence and the debate that surrounds it:
The problem lies in the elusive nature of "intelligence" itself. Whether obtained from humans , communication interceptors, or satellite cameras, the data requires interpretation. Unlike marbles, which can be lined up by size or color, each fragment of intelligence must be selected and placed in a scheme that exists in the mind of the beholder. In this case, the mind of the beholder, the CIA, was at least temporarily deranged between 1998 and 2003.

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