[ Originally from Hijexx ]

Well Rek, you just HAD to go and prod a recovering leftist cynic, didn't ya? :P

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Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September [1990] that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border -- just empty desert.

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The White House is now making its case to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.

But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.

"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

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"That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't exist," [Jean] Heller[The journalist who broke the story --Hijexx] says. Three times Heller contacted the office of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) for evidence refuting the Times photos or analysis -- offering to hold the story if proven wrong.

The official response: "Trust us." To this day, the Pentagon's photographs of the Iraqi troop buildup remain classified.

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"This is not a problem unique to George Bush. It's every president I've known, and I've worked with seven or eight of them," [Lee] Hamilton says. "All, at some time or another, used intelligence to support their political objectives.

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The elites in society cannot be subtle any longer thanks to the scrutiny of collective consciousness. I disagree that elites have never enjoyed such incredible control in history.

[snip]

Please do not meme my commentary... Thanks.

[ Clarification: "incredible control" is not necessarily a reference to the level of control as much as it is a reference to the amazing manner in which it is gained now. Before it was so brute force. "Don't follow orders and you get shot." Now it's really crossed a serious threshold where people still feel that they are "free" and have some kind of say in the way the society runs. In fact, they are usually being led around by the nose. As this article quite accurately shows. --Rek ]