Rumsfeld framed intelligence failure as a failure of imagination

Evidence

Rumsfeld gave the following response to a relevant question in Morris’s film: “In my confirmation hearing … the best question I was asked was, What do you worry about when you go to bed at night? And my answer was, in effect, intelligence. The danger that we can be surprised because of a failure of imagining what might happen in the world.” — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 519

Categorization

• XREF: Rumsfeld’s ‘unknown unknowns’ connects to the office memorandum structure of speculation this book probably analyses; also flags ignorance-as-strategy tied to McGoey elsewhere in chapter. — connects to: Rumsfeld judged the inherited Cold War basing structure unaffordable — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 132; Rumsfeld ranked failures of imagination above known risks as the top threat. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 718; Iraq-war justifications derived from policy-biased intelligence that framed flawed information — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 395 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Rumsfeld judged the inherited Cold War basing structure unaffordable — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 132; Rumsfeld ranked failures of imagination above known risks as the top threat. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 718; Iraq-war justifications derived from policy-biased intelligence that framed flawed information — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 395 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Rumsfeld ranked failures of imagination above known risks as the top threat. #expands (0.92) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 718
• Iraq-war justifications derived from policy-biased intelligence that framed flawed information #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 395