re: #176 Nyet

So it happens, and what *we* see can often be the result of such politicking. It’s not like we’re privy to the internal goings on (until much later). Hence: the grain of salt.

Well, generally intelligence agencies aren’t going to go to the public and say “well this is how we know X, Y, or Z, and here’s the proof” in any country (unless that country wants to burn all its future intelligence agents and assets).

When the intelligence agencies of a nation present their information to the politicians, it is up to the politicians to decide what to do with it.

Then (in the run-up to the Iraq War), the GOP politicians involved in decision making were trying to pass the buck and claimed that intelligence indicated there were some sort of mobile WMD factories.

Note too there is information from other sources that contradicted the Bush narrative, specifically UN inspector Hans Blix and his team saying there were no such weapons there.
berkeley.edu

Blix described Bush’s monomania with WMDs in Iraq as similar to mediæval witch hunts (making the accusation without evidence).