Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
This is true, however, of almost all data in intelligence assessment--the data rarely has a single unambiguous interpretation. Assessing the validity and reliability of indicators, contextualizing them, and making collective sense of them (and their broader significance) is what analysts ought to be doing for a living.

As a general rule, I would rather have more information than less, even if the information might be inflated or indicative of multiple possible trends.
and are typically oblivious to how collecting and counting it might be affecting the very operations they are working to support.

Or just as often, will fight tooth and nail to keep a data source on line when the ops guys want to go turn it off for the negative effects its day to day operational presence has on the mission as a whole.

BL, I would discount the intel community's perspective on this by the "factor of 2 described by Fuchs," I would proably do the same for commanders at any level higher than that which the casualites were actually produced at, say company level.