> And is this the same US intelligence that said Iraq has WMDs?
I heard an interesting explanation for that - intelligence agencies don't deal well with adversaries that lie to themselves. Allegedly they had captured communication of Saddam bragging to his inner circle that his WMDs are ready and will be used soon ... but he didn't actually have any. Oops.
Same with overestimating Russian ability to wage war - when you capture communication that says "we have 30 planes ready" it is hard to know that 10 of those are fictional and 10 are broken because people routinely lie to their bosses.
I heard an interesting explanation for that - intelligence agencies don't deal well with adversaries that lie to themselves. Allegedly they had captured communication of Saddam bragging to his inner circle that his WMDs are ready and will be used soon ... but he didn't actually have any. Oops.
Same with overestimating Russian ability to wage war - when you capture communication that says "we have 30 planes ready" it is hard to know that 10 of those are fictional and 10 are broken because people routinely lie to their bosses.
But it might be bunch of excuses, who knows.