Opinions wanted

[JPaul]

I've already explained it to you and can't really spell it out much more simply. There's no argument because it's just going over the same things that you have ably demonstrated you don't understand.

Given that you think intelligence agencies supply people with information there really isn't any point on wasting more breath on you. I teach this stuff to the hard of thinking and even they pick it up.

Like I've said loads of times before, it's all there for people to read. What they think of me, or you, is a matter for the reader to decide.

Blair and his crew are liars, not because the intelligence was wrong but because they said there was no doubt about its veracity. Yet the very people who supplied the intelligence specifically said they could not verify the information that the intelligence was based on and that consequently the conclusions were uncertain.

Intelligence has to be based on something, otherwise it's just called making things up.

If they weren't just making things up, but the information on which they were basing their conclusions was dubious, then there was no certainty and Blair and Co lied.

If the information wasn't important then they were just making things up, in which case there was nothing on which to base their report to parliament. That seems to be your viewpoint. But the end result is still that Blair and Co lied.

If you can't understand that simple point, then god help those you claim to teach.

One last time, seriously I'm not doing it again.

"Yet the very people who supplied the intelligence specifically said they could not verify the information that the intelligence was based on and that consequently the conclusions were uncertain."

That is just nonsense, that's not the way it works. No matter what you may have read, or heard or guessed or made up. It's simply not the way it works.

[Ava Estelle]

Where does the Downing Street Memo fit into this debate?

It does appear, on the face of it, that a certain amount of fitting the intelligence\information to suit the intent took place.

[lynx]

Where does the Downing Street Memo fit into this debate?

It does appear, on the face of it, that a certain amount of fitting the intelligence\information to suit the intent took place.

Oh dear, JP's not going to like that, it doesn't fit in with his method of deny-insult-deny...

Don't you realise that facts and figures have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, that's not the way it works.

Btw, you may have noticed how he doesn't give any details of how he thinks it does work. But then he'd have to put forward reasoned argument.

[Ava Estelle]

... you may have noticed how he doesn't give any details of how he thinks it does work.

To be quite honest, apart from semantics, I'm having a problem working out just what it is you're disagreeing on, and it's hard to separate this from the history of this sort of thing between you two, and believe me, I know about such things!

What JP did say was this ..

Intelligence agencies use a system which is understood and lets people reading it know 3 things. How good the source of the intelligence is, how good the intelligence itself is and where it can be disseminated to. Some, military for example may use other things as well, but these 3 are the bare minimum requirements

.. that seems to be an explanation of how he feels it works.

I'm not taking sides here, I have my own views, based, like everyone else on what I read and what I see. I don't believe the war had anything whatsoever to do with WMDs, and I don't believe Bush or Blair believed that either.

[lynx]

The argument is about whether Blair and Co lied.

JP seems to say that Blair and Co didn't lie because the intelligence was subsequently proved to be wrong.

I say that they lied because they misrepresented the intelligence to parliament. It wouldn't matter a jot even if the intelligence had been right, misrepresentation is still misrepresentation.

A diversionary lecture from JP on his views on what intelligence is seems unnecessary.
However, I can understand your confusion, insults and diversion seem to be JP's stock in trade.