Iraq: A Failure of Intelligence

When is a lie a lie? What if the Bush Administration deliberately lied about the reasons to attack Iraq? What if intelligence was “cooked”? We know for certain that documents were forged and that outdated information was plagiarized off the Internet and then presented as evidence. Remember Colin Powell’s address to the UN before the war? He proudly announced “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources….What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” Wow. Look at Powell’s text now. The only things you can verify are some definite and indefinite articles and a few pronouns, prepositions and verbs. Rarely in the long history of government lying has there been such a flagrant example of mendacity and prevarication. The consequences? Thousands are dead. And the U.S. military is in Iraq for years to come.