Yep . . .
In the end, the "consensus" is often little more than an educated guess based on fragmented evidence.
Which is why it was irresponsible for Rummy, etc to claim "we know. . ."
"We know" implies a certitude that wasn't warranted.
And when the "fragmented evidence" is crude forgeries as was the case with the Niger assertions, and the CIA is on record as being against citing that evidence, claims that policy-makers were simply acting on best available intel are ludicrous.