Comment by necovek

It was certainly one perspective that was valuable to have: I imagine everybody understood that it was by CIA (it was in the name!) with everything that implies even with "fact" in the name.

There were still actual facts in there, and when there was controversial stuff, you knew that it was coming in with US-tinted glasses, so if that supported with any claim an "adversarial" point, you could trust it to be true (eg. if it confirmed rising GDP and per-capita increase for China and matched Chinese figures, you'd be fine trusting it).