meta-roj

groupthink and political agendas drive the pentagon under the bush administration. it sure seems like it from the outside, and recently, la weekly interviewed a now-retired pentagon officer, giving us a view from the inside.

USAF Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski in la weekly

I remember in one case, I had to rewrite something a number of times before it went through. It was a background paper on Libya, and Libya has been working for years to try and regain the respect of the international community. I had intelligence that told me this, and I quoted from the intelligence, but they made me go back and change it and change it. They’d make me delete the quotes from intelligence so they could present their case on Libya in a way that said it was still a threat to its neighbors and that Libya was still a belligerent, antagonistic force. They edited my reports in that way. In fact, the last report I made, they said, “Just send me the file.” And I don’t know what the report ended up looking like, because I imagine more changes were made.

for more (please remain seated and keep your arms in the car), soldiers for the truth and the insider notes from the pentagon archives.

[metafilter gave me an excuse to get this public]