Would any of these 'informants' be disenfranchised former Iraqis with an ax to grind against Hussein? Like Chalabi? Only cost us around $400,000 to get his 'information' didn't it? Guess that was some of my tax dollars going for a good cause (even though I can't seem to find the power to spend tax dollars like that in the Constitution)
We can't disclose publicly evidence from informants, because of course that would put their lives in danger and make it very difficult to recruit informants in other countries in the future. We also cannot disclose most of the information gathered by the NSA, because that would allow Saddam's regime to deduce some of the capabilities of the NSA, i.e., what kind of communications we are able to intercept
But yet they were able to disclose a rather specific list of information received from the 'informants' (types of supposed weapons, locations of supposed weapons, etc) to get buy in for the police action. Hmmm......
Oh I see!! It's okay to release information to get the buy in for the military action but when the military action doesn't find the information as it was told to us, it's not okay to release information. Makes so much sense now....
Incorrect. We did not disclose the most convincing, most senstive intelligence before the war. We used less powerful, more publicly available information to persuade the public to back the war, in order to protect sources and methods.