Hersh is in the difficult position of needing to neither confirm nor deny his sources, because if he doesn't then no future internal leaker will talk to him: we're not going to find out "how he knows" because it kills his business. He's also like John Pilger and Glenn Greenwald very definitely bringing a specific world view to the table. Like the other two, that means his editorial has a direction. I don't personally…
Hersh also has a history of breaking stories that are true, like the My Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, and other things. This counterpoint writer has none of the yank that Hersh has. Has Hersh slipped in his age? I don’t know. But this nameless IC cutout who wrote this story has basically no credibility. Why should anyone listen to him?
The good thing about this story is that you don't have to "believe" the author. It makes a series of falsifiable arguments about Hersh's story. Which of them do you contest, and why? This isn't a duel of credibilities.
This whole "IC cutout" thing says more about how you're looking at this issue than it does about the story itself.