I don't understand why anyone would be surprised by this. This is par for the course in intelligence. The intelligence agencies exist to provide whatever fict

I don't understand why anyone would be surprised by this. This is par for the course in intelligence. The intelligence agencies exist to provide whatever fiction those in power wish to hear. In the 80s, the CIA determined that the USSR was a paper tiger destined for collapse. But Reagan wanted an enemy. So the higher-ups at the CIA took the report by the head of their USSR division and threw it away, crafting their own fictional representation of the USSR as a powerhouse. This is why every major world event comes as a huge surprise to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. It doesn't surprise any of the analysts working there, they actually know what is going on most of the time. But because the truth is not politically convenient, the agency as a whole cannot be made to seem like a danger to the political machinations of those who influence their funding. Some of the gymnastics this involves are sometimes funny. Reading the CIAs reports on Iran's 'nuclear weapons program', for instance, are an adventure in absurdism. Pile after pile of pages of extensive descriptions of total knowledge of Iran's operations culminating in not a single shred of evidence of any weapons program gets topped off with "but then again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There could be a super-duper-extra-top-secret weapons program buried 50 miles underground" which gives the politicos and media the ability to report it as "CIA says Iran may have secret weapons program in new report!" Oh, and that head of the CIAs USSR division whose report showing the truth of the USSRs weakness was Aldritch Aimes. It was at that point that he realized the intelligence game was a sham and just being used to lend an air of mystique and 'secret knowledge' to whatever position those in power want to make seem legitimate and decided if everyone else was just playing a game, he might as well play to, and cut a deal with the Russians to act as a double agent.