I have learned something from a college student about the value of a skeptical approach to accounts like Richard Miniter's in OpinionJournal, referenced in the post. Miniter tells a fascinating and action-packed story, mostly as first-hand and second-hand accounts. I don't doubt that Miniter is telling an honest tale. But he reveals some particular biases along the way, and makes at least one controversial assertion that should be seen as such.

Miniter's bias is, simply stated, that the current Sudanese government has shown that it is a reliable U.S. ally in the war against Islamist terror, in particlar regarding al Qaeda. See, for example, his paragraphs beginning "Sudan's many offers," "While the Clinton administration," and "Intelligence cooperation was slowly resumed." The pro-Sudan-gov't. facts related here and throughout Miniter's article don't exist in a vacuum, but in the context of, for example, abundant contrary evidence such as has been presented here and in other Dan Darling WoC pieces, and in this 8/31/04 WoC entry on Samantha Power’s piece (and see the Wallis FT piece referenced in the comments ).

Miniter's eyebrow-raising assertion is in this paragraph on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant:

Poor intelligence…hoodwinked the U.S. into believing that the [al-Shifa] plant was owned by bin Laden and was being used to make chemical weapons. Exhibit A was a soil sample said to contain EMPTA, a precursor to VX nerve gas. But the sample could not have come from inside the plant; the ground there was covered entirely in concrete, as I noted when I toured the wreckage. And the soil sample was later shown to contain Round-Up, a common weed-killer, not EMPTA. Finally, records on file with the United Nations--which had a contract with the plant to produce medicines--revealed that it had been repeatedly visited by German and other European government officials and that neither bin Laden nor any of his front companies had any ownership stake. A classic intelligence failure.

Dan Darling has posted many times about the crucial lapse in Richard Clarke’s book “Against All Enemies.” Either Clarke was justified in urging Clinton’s 1998 cruise missile attack on al-Shifa because it was a chemical-weapons facility fronted on behalf of al Qaeda, or, per Miniter, Clarke’s intelligence on al-Shifa was wrong, and millions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry blew up an ‘aspirin factory.’ In which case Clarke and Clinton owe some Sudanese businessmen and the Sudanese government reparations and an apology: one that has, pointedly, not been forthcoming.

There isn’t much room in between these two poles.

Now, with a seeming wave of the hand, Miniter is dismissing the circumstantial evidence that AQ principals may have been involved as investors or managers of the plant. I find it surprising that such an important unresolved matter gets handled only “in passing,” as a point that is peripheral to Miniter’s larger story.

With accounts such as this one, I am not sure that there is such a thing as too much skepticism.

Absolutely right, AMac... which is why I also linked Dan's recent Sudan analysis above, and questioned whether the results of this escapade really were positive.

What I hope our readers take away from this is a sense of the uncertainty within normal intelligence operations (is this true? what's really going on here? are we being played? etc.)... and then the macro-level uncertainty that gets added at the policy level (was cooperation a good idea? what are the agendas at play?).

I'll add this: note the CIA's dependence on foreign intelligence services throughout this story - services that always have an agenda of their own. Without their own agents in place who can obtain the kind of information they need and serve to cross-check each other, the CIA's counter-intelligence (think "quality control") function has serious problems.

Counterintelligence is actually something that the CIA hasn't done all that well, a problem that compunds itself rapidly when you are as dependent on cooperation from foreign intelligence services as the CIA is.

Speaking of faulty intelligence, and the communication of faulty intelligence, it also matters that your leadership is willing and able to be honest about what IS and ISN'T so - otherwise you get information in State of the Union address that has to be retracted.

In the vein of my theory that telling the truth is a necessary-but-not-sufficient part of evaluating intelligence - I've been wanting to good-naturedly rib you Joe.

It was a shock to me, to find out from President Bush, just how unsafe prescription drugs are, when they come from Canada! Why, the drugs in Canada might even kill you, according to our esteemed President!

I worry for you Joe. Are you ok? If you run into some medical issue, where you need prescription drugs, let me know.

You'll have to pay USA prices, but I will definitely get you SAFE EFFECTIVE pills - since Canadian pills are clearly subpar.

What's that you say? You mean these prescription pills ARE from the United States, before they even get to Canada?? Well then, something about prescription medicine going over the border must make them unsafe!!

While SOME Canadians might think that President Bush's charge is an insult to our Northen neighbor, of course, we CLEARLY know it's because the president knows best, and wouldn't mislead us or misleading on FACTS or INTELLIGENCE, right?

On truth-telling here.

From JC:
It was a shock to me, to find out from President Bush, just how unsafe prescription drugs are, when they come from Canada! Why, the drugs in Canada might even kill you, according to our esteemed President!

Actually, the problem isn't Canadian drugs so much as drugs which claim to be from Canada but actually aren't. An example is CanadRx, which was operating in the Bahamas.

The problem is that there isn't a framework in place to make sure that (1) the drugs really are from canada and (2) the drugs are the same ones on the Canadian market and not some adulterated product or a counterfit.

There are other issues that need to be looked at such as Canada, Europe, and other places under paying for drugs and effectively eviscerating drug development. There is a reason why the vast majority of new drugs comes from the US, afterall, but that is an arguement for another time.

JC (12:50am),

This thread was about the evaluation of intelligence, with the specific instance of the Islamist government of Sudan and the meaning and extent of its helpfulness to us in combatting Islamist threats.

Not many folks had managed to connect the drug-reimportation issue to Sudan before now.

The fact that Rx drugs are cheaper to buy in Canada than the US means that you or I can exploit a distorted market by, well, filling our 'scrips in Canada. Obvious. But it takes a pretty credulous person (or a pretty cynical candidate) to claim that the U.S. healthcare system can game the system by filling prescriptions across the border. It's worth reflecting on the economic details of a problem that is 100% economics. Punch line: '[No reimportation] scenario would do much to help American consumers and could potentially harm foreign consumers a good deal.'

That Bush is too craven to state the facts reflects poorly on him, but changes the fundamentals not one whit.

You must've provided that "truth-telling" link to CalPundit hoping readers wouldn't click on it. Quoting Drum, aptly: "let me say that I know this formula is sort of dumb and simpleminded and I know there's no way to truly quantify deception."

FWIW, I used Drum's (suspect) roster of questions and Drum's (self-admittedly suspect) scoring methodology to rate Kerry and Bush. Except I did it blind, out of curiosity. Drum's Lie Score: Bush 118, Kerry 60. My result: Bush and Kerry tied at 78. Proving what--that Drum despises Bush? We needed a faux matrix for that?

AMac,

I do consider the "elephant in the room" the extreme politization of intelligence, to be an overriding cause of concern - especially regarding Office of Special Plans, Cheney, etc - and this is also applicable to Islamist threats.

The "self-honesty" of an administration to not attempt to sway honest gathering of intelligence, is important - and relevant here.

I mention "ribbing" Joe, and the tongue-in-cheek nature of the ribbing is why drugs from Canada and this post get connected.

The connecting link? Honest representation, evaluation and intelligence - or an example of the lack thereof in Bush's comments in the debate.

I found the Kevin Drum post interesting, because he gave the beginnings of a metric whereby "honesty" in politicians could start to be measured. I hoped people would click on the link and judge for themselves. As you said, you evaluated different. Good for you!

JC,

While you and I agree on the dangers of politicization of intelligence, there is less there than meets the eye. You mention the betes noires of the anti-Bush factions. 'Anonymous' of "Imperial Hubris" fame derided some of the same to approving murmurs of the Left--anyone who bashes Bush can't be bad--but when you read his text, an entirely different critique emerges. And then you have the careful reads of Dan Darling, who comes at the problem from an entirely different angle. Example here; recent editorial comments here.

You might be dismayed but not surprised that I'd place my bets with Darling. Two of his virtues are looking for internal consistency over time, and seeking to evaluate claims with reference to open-source information. Neither of these traits are demonstrated by most analysts of the other camps with any particular passion.

As far as ribbing Katzman, I'd hope you'll pick better than drug reimportation. Or electricity too cheap to meter, a perpetual motion machine, or the Springfield monorail. Common sense ought to have disabused reimportation's advocates of their quaint belief that the system can be jiggered to provide benefits to all by gaming the system. Deaniacs and other Bush-haters won't accept the obvious because George W. Bush isn't being straight with them on the unpleasant truth? A fine whine.

You're certainly free to think better of Drum's pseudo-quantification than he claims to. As he knows, he offers no "beginnings of a metric" that wasn't discarded by statisticians decades ago. Read about the potential misuse of "ordinal" scales in Chapter 1 of any primer on the subject.

Read the Drum piece. Suffice to say I would have scored it differently, and my trust in a system scored by an avowed Democratic patisan is not huge. But, more important fish to fry these days.

As I've noted before, in the end all intelligence can do is rigorous quality control (counter-intelligence) that lets it be somewhat more sure of what it's being told. The story above shows why that matters - and also its limitations.

Analysts will always bring their own biases, and in the end policymakers must decide. Chemical weapons plant or asprin factory? Russian missiles in Cuba, or not ("not" was the CIA's position until the photos were taken)? Sufficient risk to justify action, in the face of uncertain information (and it usually is)? Are we courting this ally and sharing intelligence as a step forward in the war, or setting the USA up for betrayal by genocidal Islamists with a hostile agenda?

That's the real world of intelligence, and of policymaking. It's less of a dark conspiracy than most people tend to think - and also rather less certain.