“Until he retired in October 2002, Gregory Thielmann was in charge of military assessments within the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He said the makeup of the intelligence unit [the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, headed by neoconservative scholar David Wurmser] was a giveaway, indicating that they had no interest in true analysis. Like [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas] Feith, Wurmser spent most of his career as a pro-Israeli activist and had no background at all in intelligence. ‘Are they missile experts?’ Thielmann asked. ‘Nuclear engineers? There’s no logical explanation for the office’s creation except that they [the Bush Administration] wanted people to find evidence to support their answers about war [in Iraq].’ “ [The 15th of the month chosen for date sorting purposes only.]
– James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Page 290