https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.ht...
This is exactly what I said.
> Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser about the gaps in the intelligence. Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone, who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security Archive.
To figure out who the liars are we need to know who engaged in a cover-up. Who manipulated, withheld information, or lied. You already know my opinion: I don't think it was the NSA.
For example "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred" suggests that the NSA's information was, in fact, good. It just was ignored, manipulated, omitted, etc.
I don't find that you mention NSA ITT before my comment. Parent comment did mention them, and your response was the off-topic (for Tonkin, anyway) "CIA doesn't lie!"
Neither supposed "attack" occurred! NSA reports were used to claim that they did occur! You don't think NSA has and is currently withholding information? Why don't you read what you pasted above? "Key pieces of evidence are missing"? If only the TLAs had the technology to preserve the information they gather... this is not credible.
Even if NSA reports had said "there was definitely no Vietnamese attack", those reports were used by the executive branch to ramp up the war. The authors of those reports, and every superior of those authors up the chain to the president, would have had a duty to contradict the false claims. Of course this is fantasy. NSA doesn't oppose war, and its reports reflect this.
I think the lying occurs higher up in the command structure where some intelligence is omitted from consideration because it doesn't fit the narrative the higher-ups are pursuing. I suppose there's a question here about who, exactly, is involved in this process of filtering out inconvenient information. Are those people part of the intelligence agency or not? This is a tricky question but, even if they are part of the intelligence agency, the pressure to omit comes from the executive branch. The NSA/CIA/etc aren't pursuing a pro-War policy...the executive branch is.
For example, imagine someone in the CIA is asked to provide a report about the likelihood of Iraq having radioactive material that could be weaponized. This person performs diligent research and produces, to the best of their abilities, a factual report. The executive branch presents this report as a "slam dunk" which shows that Iraq has radioactive material. Who lied?
Toward the end of your post, you blur the distinction between "lying" and "having a duty to contradict false claims". I'm only talking about lying although I agree that people do have an imperfect duty to contradict false claims.
In every press conference announcing some fresh horrific stupid war, there are spooks present and they do receive direct questions. It would be better for humanity if they didn't lie when answering.
Claims that CIA aren't pro-war and must be corrupted by evil presidents are pure fantasy. CIA have fought wars, by themselves, without telling the president. [0]
[EDIT:] If you've reached the point that you're imagining that honest secret reports are overruled by the public statements and actions of dishonest elected officials, could you accept that the whole idea of government secrecy is mistaken? Why not have these conversations in the open? Surely we'd make better decisions?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Personally I'm pro-regime change, especially in Cold War Latin America, but that doesn't change anything.
Why does the military industrial complex together with intelligence agencies fabricate lies to keep us embroiled forever in these evil endless wars? Every time we try and pull out there's a new BS story from these groups that everyone laps up: "Bounties on US soldiers! War is good! War is peace! War forever!"
The CIA would be no good to anyone if they were in the business of lying.