[I've been out of town.]
On 25 Jul 2003, "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has
recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa.
The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot
do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The
British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this,
but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality.
At this point, do you;
a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong
reservations about it?
b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own
intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about?
c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable?
d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources
our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence
services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the
world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report?
Your choice. What do you do?
Misinformation has long been an issue. Intelligence services try to
plant misinformation in an enemy's mind. For example, in World War
II, the Allies set up a complete, fake army to fool the Germans into
thinking the attack in Normandy was a feint.
Moreover, as a practical matter, intelligence services often try to
plant misinformation through an ally, on the principle that such
information is harder to check.
Going back in time several generations, we can look at what done.
Suppose the British informed the US that they had acquired
"significant quantities of intelligence" about Stalin's efforts to
build and deploy nuclear weapons.
The US cannot `verify' the intelligence.
What does the US do?
I don't know the current procedures, but in the past, the US would
have told the British that there are suggestions that the intelligence
is misinformation.
Certainly, the US would not have called the British liars since the
British may have been fooled or their intelligence systems penetrated
(as indeed they were).
Nor would the US call the British incompetent since they are not.
The question is whether they have been fooled or corrupted into
thinking that misinformation is information.
Nor would the US ignore the British intelligence as questionable, but
would investigate it and only discount it if US sources suggested it
was misinformation.
Nor would the US believe a British intelligence report without
supporting evidence, since the US understands how difficult
intelligence gathering is. Even if US officials believe that British
spies are better than US spies, the US officials know that sometimes
the British are misled, just as US spies are misled. No one expects
perfection, especially in an area as murky as espionage.
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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