dianavan,

I'll let you into a little secret - intelligence is, in real life, nearly always faulty, it is nearly always incomplete, and if it is multi-sourced it is often contradictory. The greatest art is in the assessment and evaluation of that intelligence.

The gathering of intelligence is done by professionals, the assessment of that intelligence is done by professionals and the evaluation of that intelligence deemed to be trustworthy and "actionable" is also the work of professionals. If you believe for one milli-second that it should be done by a career politician then you are living in cloud-cuckoo-land.

The training of members of the armed forces is done by professionals, the conduct of soldiers in general, but particularly in the "field", is the immediate and personal responsibility of the platoon and company officers and non-commissioned officers. In no way is it the responsibility of a career politician sitting at a desk some 8,000 miles away, purely and simply because he is not in immediate touch with what every single member of his armed forces is doing at any particular moment of time.

But please, if you chose to believe differently, carry-on as I find your take on these things extremely entertaining - absolutely ridiculous, but definitely entertaining.