Fred, please delete this if I’m making a fool of myself, cause my memory is vague on this. But when I read this quote, it reminded me of something that I read on rantburg. Anyone recognize this quote in the Washington Post, by Walter Pincus, as their own...or did I just read this same quote in the WP?
"This doesn’t prevent Pincus from letting his sources rip the memo. One anonymous "former senior intelligence officer" quoted by Pincus sniffs that the memo is not an intelligence product but ’data points ... among the millions of holdings of the intelligence agencies, many of which are simply not thought likely to be true.’"
| It's probably not a Rantburger being quoted. I've made a few remarks on the distinction between raw data and finished intelligence. The quality of raw intel can vary widely, from solid to amorphous, usually depending on the source, but also depending on a lot of other factors, like its physical quality. Anyone in the analysis and reporting chain knows this, from the collectors to the head cheeses. It sounds like the guy doesn't like the conclusions reached, so he's pooh-poohing the data and ignoring the cross-checking process or pretending it didn't occur. A lot of finished product comes from taking fragmentary or suspect data and cross-checking it to see if it has any value or validity. Once it's been included into those "millions of data points" it's available for later product to be cross-checked against. |
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