Additionally, there are some outspoken intelligence analysts who are restricted with regards to what they publish since it counters mainstream thinking…specifics are sensitive. Analysts are not allowed to candidly identify enemy gaps with appropriate remedies to engage them since it is considered as directing policy or being policy prescriptive. I think of Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc when such analysts are ignored.
I can vouch for much of this; one of the joys of being a Defense Attache in a conflict zone was that I could offer useful intelligence that inside the Beltway upset the gatekeepers but pleased the senior consumers. When you get personal cables (not emails) from the DIA Director, the Director of Defense HUMINT Service, the J2, and OSD as well as the NSC thanking you for analytical reporting versus history/news reports--at the sametime the gatekeepers are trying to shut you down--the utterly Kafkaesque nature of DC intelligence "cooperation" emerges in stark terms.

Best

Tom