Iron rule of bureaucracy

"It is said that if a tigress sees her cubs endangered, she will fight with deranged passion to defend them. But her dedication pales into submission compared with the fury with which senior civil servants and most notably of the Foreign Office will defend the fiction that they cannot have made a mistake."

The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue Frederick Forsyth

Related:

Why bureaucracies fail (II): Can experts admit to mistakes?

A confederacy of (sinister) dunces