What we publish, and what we refuse to publish.
These are the rules applied to every briefing before release. They exist so a reader can tell the difference between what happened, what someone claims happened, and what this desk thinks it means.
Source first
Every factual claim in a briefing links to original reporting, an official statement or a primary document. A claim does not become verified because it appeared in an earlier briefing, because it circulated widely, or because it fits an existing assessment.
Where a source is a single outlet reporting on its own, the briefing says so. Where two outlets repeat the same wire copy, that is treated as one source, not two.
Fact kept apart from judgment
Briefings distinguish four things, visibly:
- Confirmed events — corroborated by an official source or multiple independent outlets.
- Attributed claims — someone said it; the desk has not verified it.
- Analytical inference — this desk's reasoning, labelled as such.
- Unresolved questions — what the evidence cannot yet answer.
Judgments are marked CIC Judgment and are never presented as facts.
Confidence is about evidence, not odds
A confidence rating describes how strong the underlying evidence is. It does not describe how likely an event is to occur. A high-confidence judgment can describe an unlikely outcome, and a low-confidence judgment can describe something that may well happen.
When a report does not state a confidence rating for a specific judgment, this site shows "not stated" rather than inferring one.
Corrections
Material errors — a wrong attribution, a wrong figure, a withdrawn claim — are corrected on the published briefing itself, with the date and the reasoning recorded in its corrections record. The original text is preserved where practical so the change is visible.
Submit a correction through the contact page. Corrections are published whether or not they are flattering.
What this desk does not do
- No classified material is solicited, accepted or published.
- No real-time operational tracking of units, personnel or movements.
- No predictions presented as forecasts with implied precision.
- No advocacy. Analysis that reads as a policy recommendation is cut before publication.
Independence
Cahill Intelligence Cell is an independent civilian publication. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense, any intelligence agency, or any government. It has no sponsor, client or institutional funder.
Service experience can help frame a question and suggest where an official account is thin. It cannot substitute for evidence. Where experience and evidence disagree, the evidence wins, and the briefing says so.