On War and Intelligence, about Arnhem 1944
I discovered then two things: one is that if soldiers want to do something which they think is going to be a great piece of military glory, no amount of good intelligence, once they’ve got going, will stop it. Another thing I discovered is that it’s bad enough to be against something they all want to do, but if you turn out to be right, people hate you with a loathing which is beyond any belief.
I never spoke to anyone about that story for about forty years after that. Montgomery wanted to finish the war with a brilliant coup under his command, and therefore ignored the intelligence. This Iraq war is a little bit different because the intelligence has been tailored to support a lot of fantastic reasons for going to war.
a conversation with Sir Brian Urquhart,
former Under Secretary-General of the UN
[x]#579 fan vrijdag 28 mei 2004 @ 16:35:00
