They had faulty intelligence, they just had to ignore reams of good intelligence from the professionals in order to listen to their own faulty intelligence. Feh.
Of course, leaning on your intelligence staff until they finally do give in and hand you what you wanted to hear (if you can press them that hard) pretty much guarantees faulty intelligence as well. My understanding is that the CIA didn't cave on this so Bush had to ignore the CIA, but it appears he wanted the CIA to play along ... which means he was asking for faulty intelligence.
So yeah, the current situation isn't quite parallel to the historical ones described in that article.
The planet -- including the US -- would be so much better off without him at the top of the US govt.
Re: Faulty intelligence, snicker snicker
Of course, leaning on your intelligence staff until they finally do give in and hand you what you wanted to hear (if you can press them that hard) pretty much guarantees faulty intelligence as well. My understanding is that the CIA didn't cave on this so Bush had to ignore the CIA, but it appears he wanted the CIA to play along ... which means he was asking for faulty intelligence.
So yeah, the current situation isn't quite parallel to the historical ones described in that article.
The planet -- including the US -- would be so much better off without him at the top of the US govt.