My Experience with Military Intelligence Was Over 50 Years Ago,

[Warpy]

36. Need to know or not, our intelligence apparatus has been caught flat footed more than once

The most egregious case was when they were surprised by the sudden collapse of the USSR. Well, the collapse wasn't sudden and I'm sure the worker bees did their jobs well and duly reported all the signs of imminent collapse, but the King Bees all needed the Cold War to keep their jobs and sat on the information, hoping it was untrue.

So I have a deep cynicism regarding intelligence agencies, no matter what country has them. I'm convinced most of the stuff buried under layers of "need to know" is stuff meant to cover a lot of fat asses who were either afraid to tell some high placed honchos things he didn't want to hear or whose sheer incompetence buried them.

So not only are we in the dark, so are most heads of state.

Our warning to the world, together with the UK, that this invasion was imminent was unusual. The world's dismissal of it as alarmist was business as usual.