I think you give this admin to much credit. If they were interested in "playing the game" they would not have been all over the media telling the public that they would find the WMDs long after everyone else knew they were not there. They eventually modified it to be programs of WMD and continued on like they had always be looking for programs of WMD. They could have down played the importance of finding WMDS long ago but they had PR on the mind.


>>Are you suggesting that our leaders are not being honest with us about the lack of WMDs found? I feel so betrayed.
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>Don't be silly, I'm saying that anyone who understands how the game is played knows you don't tell everything you know just to keep the children quiet. The Venona intercepts weren't declassified until 1995. They weren't even used in the Hiss trial or the Rosenburg case. Agents were even allowed to stay in place. No press conferences. Does that mean Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush1 all "lied" to the American people about what we knew about the Soviets?
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>Cracking Enigma would have been a big PR plus for Churchill. Clinton would have held a press conference.
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>Most folks are blissfully ignorant about the real world of intelligence. The best stories don't get told.
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>Nothing wrong with that. But sometimes "public opinion" sounds like one of your clients offering opinion about computer languages because of something he heard from the kid who works for $6 an hour at Best Buy. ;-)
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>I don't know what they have found - that's good. I don't have a need to know. But I know something about the people who do know, and I know if Cofer Black knew there was a stash of Sarin or botulism toxin in the Bekaa Valley he wouldn't call Dan Rather just to get his picture in the news. ( you've probably never seen pictures of the people who really know things. Mike Spann's star went on the wall and there were only 29 others that had names ) Cofer Black would watch the NSA keyhole feed and evaluate how to use information that important to save lives and defeat evil. He doesn't much care what Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon or Dennis Kucinich thinks. ( and probably, like me, feels kind of sorry for anyone who does. )
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>>>Iraq is a big place. The border areas are pourous. Think Bekaa Valley. Don't assume that whatever has been found will show up on the evening news. The serious people aren't playing this for the politics.