Satire: The Department of Faulty Intelligence

Andy Borowitz, posted at MSNBC/Newsweek:

The Big Lie Department

To collect more false leads and red herrings, the White House has created a new government agency in charge of faulty intelligence.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE SATIRE

By Andy Borowitz

Newsweek

March 6, 2007 - In response to what he called a "significant increase in the amount of misinformation about our enemies," President George W. Bush today announced that he was establishing a new Cabinet-level agency devoted solely to faulty intelligence. By creating the Department of Faulty Intelligence, Bush said, "The United States will be able to respond swiftly and preemptively to false threats before they don’t develop."

The president said that while the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) had both collected faulty intelligence in the past, "there is simply too much misinformation out there for those two agencies to handle." Bush said that he hoped that the Department of Faulty Intelligence would not only increase the United States’ capacity to collect false leads and red herrings, but that it would also help coordinate the sharing of useless information among the government’s various spy agencies.

Bush used the announcement at the White House to introduce his nominee to head up the new department, James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces." Frey spoke mainly in general terms about the goals of the new agency, but indicated that it would focus on "the gathering threat" posed by Belgium’s nuclear program.

In his brief remarks to the press, Frey said that he was uniquely qualified to head the new faulty intelligence department because of his "deep roots" in the faulty-intelligence community. "I will be bringing over four decades of experience to this job," said Frey, 37.

Elsewhere, a lunar eclipse occurred over the weekend when former Vice President Al Gore briefly stepped in front of the moon.

Tags: Andy Borowitz, Newsweek, Big Lie Department, satire, humor, George Bush, faulty intelligence