These errors largely sound like obfuscation... like a potentially true narrative with the names and places changed:
- Instead of revealing the fishing vessel, he describes a vessel that it couldn't have been.
- Giving the real timing would expose the vessel, so he gives timing that wouldn't have worked as a placeholder.
- Too many people were involved, because only a subset were actually involved - or maybe even just an analogous group.
Hersh eliminates the intelligence value by obfuscating exactly who did what and how, but provides lay readers (to whom the specific details don't matter) a story that conveys a general sense of how the mission was achieved.
- Instead of revealing the fishing vessel, he describes a vessel that it couldn't have been.
- Giving the real timing would expose the vessel, so he gives timing that wouldn't have worked as a placeholder.
- Too many people were involved, because only a subset were actually involved - or maybe even just an analogous group.
Hersh eliminates the intelligence value by obfuscating exactly who did what and how, but provides lay readers (to whom the specific details don't matter) a story that conveys a general sense of how the mission was achieved.