Do you know how Hersh does his work? He talks mainly to people in the US national security establishment - i.e., disgruntled officials in Washington. He knows what the policies are and the inside reaction to them. He's not talking to Iraqis and getting their POV.
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Yes.
Hersh's focus, as far as I can tell, is describing the motivations and ideas of policy makers and knowledgeable functionaries.
For example, his work for the New Yorker detailing the policy decisions that led to torture becoming standard operating procedure at Abu Ghraib is centered on what's known and unknown about American actions, not the Iraqis damaged or destroyed by them.
His articles and speeches about the possibility (almost a certainty, in his view) of an American assault upon Iran seem to be similarly concerned with what Washington intends to do -- as predicted by insiders -- instead of what's going on in Tehran.
In other words, he appears to exclusively speak about what he knows (the twists and turns of American policy elites ) and not about what he doesn't (the ground situation in Iraq from the Iraqi point of view).
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