Paul Pillar Quotes (5 Quotes)

Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war.

Iran has lots of influence in southern Iraq. And they have not used it nearly as much as they can.

It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized.

The consensus analytic view was that there was a lot of dissatisfaction but that it didn't translate into a pre-revolutionary situation. Iran doesn't have the appetite for making another revolution. I think there has probably been more faith among the policy-makers in the prospects of true regime change than most of the analysts believe.

Every audio or video tape is potentially traceable by intelligence services. We hope they will make a mistake, but they are extra cautious.