untrue stories that come up in intelligence work.

There were so many BS stories that were spread from intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war.  None of that BS was true such as meetings between Al Qaida and Iraqis in Prague. Hmmm, Prague??? Sound familiar???

It seems that we as Americans have forgotten about this. We have let wild BS stories like in the Steele Dossier start an investigation that has hurt this country for the past two years.  

Is that our Intelligence in the Middle East at the turn of the century was woefully inadequate.   As the Cold War ended, both H.W. Bush and Clinton failed to realize where the new battleground was, and did not direct the CIA to enhance its intelligence efforts in there.   In 2001, we still had very few intelligence agents who even spoke Farsi.

The lesson is not that our intelligence community is incompetent.  Our intelligence in Europe and Russia, remains extremely reliable, honed on decades of experience.   We have also vastly improved our capabilities in the Middle East over the last 18 years.