Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[seabass]

>>>I would be very interested in knowing why these assesments were so different and why we're sure this one is correct.<<<


MITCHELL: Everything‘s changed. And in fact, look, we should say one word about the intelligence guys. They got it wrong on Iraq. They relied on Curveball, infamously.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

MITCHELL: They decided this time—they were about to release this report, send it to Congress last spring. They got new information, multiple streams of information, I‘m told human intelligence, electronic intelligence, all of these streams coming together. They said, Whoa, let‘s not release this. They brought in outside experts. They scrubbed it. They didn‘t want another Curveball, and they got it right, we are told.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22114621/



BLITZER: Well, let me ask you this, is it possible that this new NIE -- because we know that the 2005 NIE was wrong, the 2002 NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was wrong.

Is it possible this new one that has just been made public, declassified, is it possible they got it wrong again?

HERSH: It's been four years since we've had any positive evidence of a parallel secret program to build a bomb. And we've been all over the country. One of the things that that NIE, that they finished last year, actually, that they were working on last year, it was a result of a lot of covert operations. I also was writing about the fact that we had people on the ground inside. We checked every place we thought there was some secret activity and we found nada -- nothing.

So, sure, it's possible. Everything's possible. But this is -- this is a pretty remarkable document, given the hostility to it inside the White House that it's been made public.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0712/04/sitroom.02.html