Feith's team, Hayden said, had set out to prove a case by assembling "every possible ounce of evidence" and ignoring contradictory information. Using that method, he continued, analysts can build a convincing case against even innocent targets.

"I got three great kids, but if you tell me, 'Go out and find all the bad things they've done, Hayden,' I could build you a pretty good dossier," Hayden said. "You'd think they were pretty bad people because that's what I was looking for and that's what I built up. That'd be very wrong, OK? That would be inaccurate. That would be misleading."