Talk:Stovepiping

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[edit] NPOV Issue with Deliberate Stovepiping Ref

The reference used to justify this assertion about the Bush administration is from an opinion column in the New Yorker. I am posting the discussion here to see if anyone can think of how to reword it to meet NPOV criterion. If not, I may try to delete or reword it. Fundamentaldan 16:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

No, at this point the only reasonable conclusion is that such intelligence manipulation took place, for the following reasons:

1) The intelligence reports submitted by the Bush administration to the nation were contrary to the conclusions of the professional analysts at the CIA. George Tenet doesn't count, by the way. He's a career politician and never worked as an intelligence analyst--if the people who ran federal agencies were actually qualified to work for those agencies, maybe messes like this wouldn't happen (FEMA is another case in point).

2) The Bush admin's claims that were contrary to more "mainstream" claims have turned out to be false (no WMD's, no Al Qaeda links, etc), which is the unsuprising result of having non-professionals doing intelligence analysis.

3) Nobody denies that the Office of Special Plans existed, or that it's mission was to make a case that Iraq ought to be invaded, that they wished to pursue leads that the CIA discounted, or that their method was to look at intelligence items prior to vetting by CIA analysts.

4) The DoD inspector general has looked into this and says that such things took place, as reported by the AP.

Levin: Intel Report 'Very Damning'

By Associated Press

February 9, 2007

A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee...

I should also mention that the cited New Yorker article is not an "opinion column" and supports the statements in this article very well. It is quite clear why the OSP existed and what it did, and I am going to remove the tag because there is no lack of neutrality. Triggtay 07:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I notice that it has been rewritten since I put the NPOV tag on there, and has had a bit of work done to it. I still think it is a bit POVish, but may try to improve it later today by adding the article I saw where Feith denied the characterization of the office. Also, I did not readd the NPOV tag. I see it has been added twice and taken off twice. I will leave it on until we reach consensus here that problems are fixed. Also, I would ask others to do the same. Do not be tempted to violate WP:3RR. Discuss it here instead. Regards, Fundamental Dan 15:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I have added Douglas Feith's comment on FNS disputing this claim. If this is enough to give NPOV, can we get consensus on removing the tag? If not, what else is needed? Fundamental Dan 16:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Of note, Douglas Feith doesn't seem to dispute that stovepiping took place. My understanding is that he, and others, have only denied that this practice is inappropriate Triggtay 17:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the he said/she said and left only the facts which are not in dispute. Namely, that OSP was a "stovepipe" and that the stuff they came up with formed a substantial part of the justification for war, and that these claims were false. Feith's statement really doesn't cast doubt upon any of these elements, and was thus non-contributory. All he says is, essentially, "yeah we did everything they say we did...but i still think it was a good idea." Triggtay 18:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not think you should remove the NPOV tag when this is obviously a POV issue. According to Fox News Sunday, Feith disputes substantially the way this is characterized, especially about it being false intelligence. He states that it differed from the other intelligence, but that it was not false. I will not restore the language or the POV tag. But I think you should, or should figure out how to phrase it without saying it was "false intelligence" that was passed on to the American public. It is not Wikipedia's job to state the intelligence was false, especially when one of the principals involved disputes that. We should say that it is alleged to be false and is disputed by him. Fundamental Dan 18:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Dan, if the sky is blue, then wikipedia ought to say that the sky is blue. If the intelligence was false, then wikipedia ought to say that the intelligence was false. The actions of government officials, despite any attendant controversy, are not exempt from occupying the realm of facthood. The intelligence was false, and not just because I say so, but because it was. Many reliable sources agree with me, and they are referenced in the relevant primary subject articles. Notably, not even Mr Feith maintains that the claims of the OSP relating to Iraq & Osama/WMDs were accurate. In the cited statement he only asserted that the OSP's actions constituted "good government". A declaration of "good government" is an opinion that depends on one's point of view (or as they say, POV), but is not an assertion of a fact--or a denial of a fact.

Althoughh the principles deny that their actions were wrong in a moral sense, 1) They do not deny the creation of a shortcut for raw intelligence--the subject of this article, 2) they do not deny that the allegations their stovepipe yielded were ultimately found to be inaccurate, 3) they do not deny that these stovepipe-yielded allegations were influential in US policy.

The above three points are important to include in this article becuse

1) this article is about stovepipes, and the OSP is perhaps the most famous example

2) The article states that stovepipes can yield inaccurate intelligence, and the OSP illustrates this point

3) The article states that stovepipes create the opportunity for inaccurate intelligence to influence official decision making, and OSP-derived inaccurate intelligence did influence official policy--illustrating this point

A more detailed discussion of the manner in which the intelligence was false, and the attendant controversies, can be found in such articles as Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, but since this an article about stovepipes--not the iraq war, I do not see how a detailed analysis of the political fallout of the OSP merits inclusion. I think we should simply stick with describing the OSP as a famous stovepipe and the ways in which it exemplifies the characteristics of stovepipes, including their propensity for introducing error.

Triggtay 20:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with how you corrected it. I think the way the article reads now is much closer to NPOV. Thanks for your hard work on it. Fundamental Dan 16:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The term itself, and should it necessarily be considered "bad?"

Where did the word come from? Where was it first used-- Hersch's column, or was this term understood in the context of information theory, or... Please, I'd like to know if ANYBODY was "stovepiped" (and called it that) prior to 2003.

Perhaps the "we report, you decide" motto has been taken too literally by some? Can't it be said that, for instance, most politically-oriented blogs and discussion are often or even typically "stovepipes"?

Also, isn't the very compilation and extraction of data, its emphasis implied by its inclusion in a set of data, a filtering process? Is "common sense" a regularized filter in most disciplines (heh, not in government, I'm sure)? How many times have you heard of a corporation where the board or CEO has a wholly different view of the facts and their interpretation than the shareholders or outside observers or even of their own mid and lower level employees?

Could an argument be made that you need access to BOTH filtered, analyzed and vetted opinions AND raw or divergent views? That ultimately the fewer "layers" of interpretation preceding the final digestion of the "facts" by the decisionmaker, the better? How often do we accuse leaders of being "out of touch?"

I'm aware the neutrality issue in this entry is important; I think partly it is because it has not sufficient linkage to a discussion of how information is SUPPOSED to be supplied to the decision-making process... an appeal to "common sense" is good, if it is YOUR sensibilities used as the baseline.

Ahem, the volume of data is not always a good indicator of its utility-- a preponderance of evidence can't guide someone UNLESS one is convinced that the set of exceptions is suspect, tainted, unrelated or has inherently less value.

The CIA missed a few things on the road to our current situation, didn't it? When do you deprecate a source of analysis, and by how much? Just a few thoughts to play with, if you choose. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.53.228.145 (talk) 18:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Definition

US reveals plans to hit back at cyber threats

"We have 10,000 people to do this, but the problem is they are stovepiped," said Elder.

"Stovepiping" has two complementary meanings. In IT terms it describes information held in separate databases which is difficult to access due to its multiple locations — the UK equivalent term would be "siloed". In intelligence-gathering terms — the Eighth also serves as the US Air Force information operations headquarters — "stovepiping" refers to information which has been passed up the chain of command without undergoing due diligence.

good this article exists. I thought you might be interested LeaNder (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)