U.S. INTELLIGENCE….In a story so suffused with anonymous “Western diplomats,” unnamed “Bush administration officials,” and mysterious “intelligence reports” as to be almost completely useless, LA Times reporters Douglas Frantz and Sonni Efron accidentally provide a one-sentence summary of how the rest of the world sees us these days:
“The report is being viewed seriously because it originates from outside U.S. intelligence sources,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Even an American official admits that this report ? allegedly about Iranian nuclear activities ? is being taken seriously only because it’s not from the U.S. If it were, presumably foreign governments would just assume it was the usual BS.
This is a heavy price to pay for the cynical and exaggerated way the Bush administration treated intelligence before the war.
