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Originally Posted by Nage Waza
I actually laugh at people that claim they knew before hand that Bush and his team were lying about the WMDs.
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I didn't *know* that there were no WMDs at the time, but I *did* know that nobody really knew whether or not he did. All the evidence could have been interpreted two ways: either he was trying to hide WMDs, and was successful - or he didn't have any WMDs and he was trying to fool people into thinking he had. Further, I didn't know if the administration was lying about him having WMDs, but I did know they were lying about being "sure" that he had them, because there was nothing but circumstantial evidence - if they had had concrete and unmistakable evidence, they would have used it to get the UN onside.
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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
But I'm not making the big bucks analyzing intelligence. One hopes that the powers that be in Washington are hiring smarter and better-resourced people than us to make these determinations--so in that sense, what we thought doesn't excuse anything.
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The problem is that it doesn't matter what the experts think as they aren't asked what they think; they are given scenarios and asked to find supporting data. The raw information can support just about anything, so no matter what fantasies are presented there will always be "evidence" to confirm them.
That same problem is what makes me hope the USA doesn't try to interfere in Iran - they know all sorts of "facts" about the Iranians, none of which are useful in telling them what to DO. The Soviets used to eat the Americas alive in the spy game precisely because "facts" are useless without context in which to understand them, and that context is only supplied by well-trained and placed agents in large numbers and not just communications intercepts, satellite photos and interviews with dissidents.
Look at the search for Bin Laden - it'll be 8 years this fall that he has been the #1 target of US intelligence, and they are no closer to him now than they were in 2001. You'd think it'd be a national scandal, with all the intelligence agencies under severe pressure and congressional investigation for incompetence, but instead they ban shampoo bottles on airplanes and waterboard low-level footsoldiers to make it seem like something useful is going on. The farther away these idiots stay from some kind of active response to Iran's troubles, the better.