More on the BBC programme 'The Power of Nightmares'. It was well worth watching and drew a number of parallels between, for example, the Team B approach to investigating how serious the threat from the USSR was. In the main, Team B opposed the conclusions of the established and professional bodies like the CIA, claiming they underestimated the threat.

Here's a summary of the Team's creation from a website:

In late 1975, a dramatic reshuffling of the Ford administration installed a new defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, a new chief of staff, Dick Cheney, and a new CIA chief, George H.W. Bush. It was Bush who approved the formation of "Team B," a group of 16 outside experts charged with challenging what some considered the CIA's sanguine estimates of Soviet military strength. Pipes, named the group's chairman, brought in a brilliant young weapons analyst, Paul Wolfowitz. "Richard Perle recommended him," Pipes says of Wolfowitz today. "I'd never heard of him."

This team saw threats where - as later evidence has demonstrated - none existed. For example, they took the fact that certain weaponry could not be found as evidence that the USSR ability to hide weapons was much greater than previously thought. On the programme, someone from the CIA - I'm afraid I forget who - claimed that every single thing Team B claimed proved to be wrong when firm evidence came to light.

Now, compare that to the role of the "Office of Special Projects", the missing WMD, the 45-minute claim ...

I don't see this programme being shown in the US for quite some time. In fact, I am a little surprised it got an airing in the UK.