If one source is the source of information for two intelligence agencies, and the one intelligence agency uses the other for confirmation, it creates an echo chamber. When newspaper sources are receiving this 'confirmed' intelligence and spreading it to their highly influential commentators and journalists, the echo chambers becomes a megaphone in a canyon. When this all happens in support of a policy position you'd like to take anyway ('securing middle eastern oil fields' or 'protecting american interests'), it's pretty easy, and convenient, to turn on the blinders and plunge ahead.
Of course, when you're paying someone millions of dollars a year to provide you with information about something, you're naturally going to keep receiving that 'information' regardless of how true it is...or ever was.
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