There's a really big difference between "false" and "we got shit wrong and exaggerated what we got wrong". Something really similar happened in the 60s and 70s in America, called the "missile gap", where the CIA analysts looked at what they thought was massive advances in the Soviet arsenal, then bigged up the numbers to improve funding to reconnaissance, spying operations and the US' own nuclear arsenal. America got way in the 'lead' in the 'arms race' without even realising it. Arguably, it averted the threat of nuclear war for a couple of decades.