I hope this article will settle once and for all the answer to the question, "was the White House a victim of bad intelligence, or did they distort the intelligence, for their own purpose." Apparently the propaganda war came directly from the Office of the Vice President, in the form of daily talking points, which career intelligence officers not only were encouraged to use, but expected to incorporate verbatim in their intelligence reports to Congress and others.
I'D SAY THIS IS A DAMN GOOD SMOKING GUN.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature...10/osp_moveon/
... "While often accused of creating intelligence, I saw only two apparent products of this office: war planning guidance for Rumsfeld, presumably impacting Central Command, and talking points on Iraq, WMD and terrorism. These internal talking points seemed to be a mélange crafted from obvious past observation and intelligence bits and pieces of dubious origin. They were propagandistic in style, and all desk officers were ordered to use them verbatim in the preparation of any material prepared for higher-ups and people outside the Pentagon. " ...
... "The message sent by Policy appointees and well understood by staff officers and the defense intelligence community was that senior appointed civilians were willing to exclude or marginalize intelligence products that did not fit the agenda."
