I have a naive question about intelligence.
Here's the story. Apparently we've bombed the hell out of an apartment building and restaurant in a residential neighborhood in Baghdad. The attempt was a second "pot shot" [my words] on the life of Saddam and/or his sons. As I write this the current body count is 9 dead, 13 wounded. I presume that the "victims" were sitting around having a cup o' Joe when the thousands of pounds of ordnance rained down.
U.S. officials said they don't know who they might have killed in the attack, but they said they believed the intelligence -- which U.S. officials received Monday -- was very good. Part of that intelligence was "human" intelligence, meaning from informants.
What the hell? Human intelligence as opposed to what exactly? Last I heard the mine-hunting-dolphins weren't talking (my apologies to George C. Scott) and "Deep Blue" was only good enough to beat a couple of Russians at chess.
Are civilian lives suddenly expendable when their lives contradict the hunt for Saddam? Whether we killed Saddam or not is not my point.
And why does the U.S. feel it needs to bomb this place? Hasn't the military overrun Baghdad? Or is that news item suspect as well? Why, in hell, doesn't the military simply send over a few of the quarter-million troops it has embedded over to this fine eatery and have a looksee?
I'm looking for answers to this latest bit of utter insanity but I understand that "a very important basketball game is being played simultaneously and many viewers might be "flipping back and forth with the coverage".
Someone explain this to me.
5:33:40 PM 
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