The existence of secondary sources doesn't reduce the need for primary sources. Before something can be published everywhere, it has to be published somewhere.
Yes, I was surprised by the overwhelming consensus here that the CIA, which is responsible for knowing what's true about other countries, doesn't do any validation of the claims they make about other countries.
The CIA was a secondary source. This bulk of this material is all drawn from other publications. Which you can now access in ways you could not before.
