NY Times = no crediblity. LA Times is on the way.
As my original post asked: Name them.
They're making too much of in-house differences because of their political bias, and profit-driven search for scandal and sensationalism? Quite possible. But Fox ran a similar story. Would you find that more credible? It's work but I can track it down.
Name names? CIA people who hold such opinions and are still working for the agency will not speak for the record for obvious reasons. There are retired CIA analysts who have gone public - VIPS - but their credibility and expertise are very much in question. I was unable to locate the names of the three State department people who resigned. It should be possible to find them. If I did how would that affect your opinions?
This is not the first time the CIA has strongly disagreed with policy makers and taken heat for it. It happened during the VietNam escalation. I found a long article documenting it. As you would expect, it's not easy to interpret. CIA analysts have the same information available to other parts of the government. Why they come to different conclusions is an interesting question.
No credibility? On the way? Absolutely not. That's gross exageration.
The latest.
When faced with a conflict between facts and ideology, the ideologue will always try to throw out the facts. It happens not just on the Left but also on the Right - too often on this forum.
My understanding - also that of Stratfor and gcochran - was that we went to war primarily to shift the balance of power in the Middle East and radically change Arab (and Muslim) society. WMD were a real consideration but the immediate threat Iraq posed was exagerated in order to sell the policy (which could not have been honestly done).
This was where gcochran and I parted company. I thought - and think - Machiavellian dishonesty is quite all right. He thought that made me an idiot and refused to speak to me. I didn't mind. He thought the neocons - and Bush - were also absolute, dishonest idiots who were committing the country to a senseless, disasterous policy (which may have had something to do with why he was banned).
"Last fall the former head of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism efforts warned that "cooked intelligence" was finding its way into official pronouncements. This week a senior British intelligence official told the BBC that under pressure from Downing Street, a dossier on Iraqi weapons had been "transformed" to make it 'sexier'"
"Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, recently told Vanity Fair that the decision to emphasize W.M.D.'s had been taken for 'bureaucratic reasons . . . because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.'"
Krugman - hopelessly partisan - sees only politics in all this. Stratfor sees deeper, geopolitical motives. I agree with Stratfor. Surprisingly, Tom Friedman seems to as well - at least as far as his politically correct blinders allow him to. :)