An illuminating inquiry into some of the things that went wrong particularly leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The perspective is somewhat from the CIA/intelligence community and there are some revealing and thoughtful insights into the mindset within that community. An partial explanation but no real excuses are given for the failure to check the administration. Conceptually terrifying - that a "doctrine" such as this, which logically could justify almost anything - was taken as a guiding principle. (The doctrine was: if there is even a 1% chance of something happening, we must assume that it will happen. The problem is, what things do not have a 1% chance? And also there are conflicting possibilities. ie maybe a 1% chance iran will go nuclear. But a 10% chance they will genuinely want peace rather than to start a nuclear weapon. How do you act on all possibilities at the same time?)
That gobblydegook, was mixed in a bubbling cauldron together with "concepts" such as known unknowns, and a bunch of other hooey. Together with the idea that the electorate and most of the administration outside the inner circle did not need to be truthfully and/or fully informed, was the road to hell, albeit not evidently paved with good intentions.
So all in all thoroughly worth reading.
I was a bit taken aback by the old thinking on Lockerbie, which I thought most of the intelligence community had moved away from somewhat, and as usual there was no mention of Lindauer or Dr Fuisz which was a shame, given the topics being discussed.
Am now moving onto Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency, which is a good companion volume.
- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Paperback Printing edition (May 15, 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743271106
- ISBN-13: 978-0743271103
- Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Customer Reviews: 145 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,751,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #869 in Iraq History (Books)
- #2936 in Political Intelligence
- #3055 in Terrorism (Books)
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