Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
I'd suggest the following scenario: Powell and the rest of the Bush administration were convinced that Iraq had WMDs, and were constantly being fed intelligence that appeared to support that position. Naturally, they paid less attention to the few reports disputing their position (as anyone would). Given their knowledge of the background of Iraq's leader, the administration then tried to get the US public and the UN to support them in their quest to end the reign of this (in their eyes) still dangerous individual. Only afterwards do they learn that the information given to them appears to be factually incorrect.
Note that there is no mention of lying in this scenario, because the people involved are all convinced they're right. Now, can anyone *proof* that my scenario is incorrect, or even very unlikely?
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Your scenario is just as unlikely as the "lying" scenario put forth by HarmlessRabbit. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
You say "Naturally, they paid less attention to the few reports disputing their position (as anyone would)." I would strongly dispute this point. If they were being responsible, they would have looked even more closely at the dissenting reports in order to make sure that their position stood up to the scrutiny. You also make the assumption that the intelligence community operates independently of the Bush administration when in fact the Bush administration had considerable influence in shaping what kind of intelligence was actually produced.