PUT UP or SHUT UP."

How funny that a Bush supporter would post something like that. Hey Herb, any thoughts on why the Bush administration would allow Zarqawi the freedom to cut Americans' heads off?

The only serious terrorist pre invasion was Zarqawi, based in the Kurdish-controlled north. According to the Pentagon, in a report published by the Washington Post, the military offered the Bush administration a plan to kill Zarqawi on three separate occasions, but the administration refused each time because killing Zarqawi would "undercut their rational for invasion." Zarqawi has gone on to kill hundreds in Iraq and personally cut two Americans' heads off. Why don't conservatives hold the Bush administration responsible for this?

When you use as sources articles with quotes like this it’s pretty clear you don’t care about lying or at a minimum very, very, very sloppy journalism:

Given Dr. Joyner's failure to address any of the legitimate arguments in these comments against his "Stratgeic Insights" hack job is evidence enough that his ideology is driving his "analysis."

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American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen, an opponent of the Iraq War, asserted in 2002 that "a relationship with bin Laden is as close to certain as you can get in the world of clandestine operations[9]."
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Intelligence collecting is not about generalities and truisms, it's not about reinforcing preconceptions. Yes we knew that Iraq was an unsavory regime that didn't like us, that had contacts with other nasties, that had lied and in the past had collected dastardly weapons.

All sorts of plausible guesses could be made from this.

The purpose of intelligence is to try and corraboate. When you have powerful individuals presenting shaky sources as fact and doing all they can to discredit those who question, you have distorted the process.

These people did not say "according to some curcumstantial evidence and our best guesses Iraq poses an immediate threat," they purposefully misrepresented information to support ther view.

This kind of distortion destroys what distinguishes our imperfect but still often effective bureacracies from the "intelligence" of "Comical Ali."

We have seen continuing coups within the intelligence agencies and the military to encourage "faith based" reality. Many of ouir most competent including Arabic speakers have been forced out or resigned in disgust.

The legitimate claim that the CIA and other organizations were imperfect and perhaps inadequete does not establish that *any* change is an improvement. Things can be worse and the opinion of people like Colonel Wilkerson and General Scowcroft is that they are.

Your argument that it is legitimate to use bad data for a higher truth is wrong. As soon as you accept this corruption as the best way to do things you are headed dowm the path of regimes like the USSR. Such regimes lost all capacity to interact with reality because they edited it.

it was about removing Saddam. That is it and that is all.

If it was only about deposing Saddam because he was a brutal dictator, then how about we also go into Cuba. How about half the sub-saharan african nations. How about the other countries in the middle east, including (and in particular) Saudi Arabia. And of course, we can't forget about North Korea. Why aren't were there now whipping Kim Jong Il's ass?

Once you start peddling that as a valid and justifiable rationale for going to pre-emptively attaching another country then you open the door to endless, bankrupting warfare. Yes, Saddam was a 'bad man'(tm). But that wasn't reason enough to declare war on Iraq, especially using "Fake but accurate" information.

Are you a clone of Ken?

There was no massive Clinton bombing campaign that destroyed anything. A few cruise missles is not a massive bombing campaign.

Jack, here's a hint: Operation Desert Fox. Google it.

I know it's hard, but try not to be such an idiot next time.

A double standard works wonders, doesn't it?

You gutless, spineless, liberal liar, PRODUCE YOUR PROOF, Here and now.

PUT UP or SHUT UP.

A top operative of al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before

On the face of it, cooperation between a radical Islamic group and a secular, socialist dictator is pretty absurd. Bin Laden and friends basically wanted to remove all secular elements from the Middle East. Saddam was in their top group of people they wanted to murder. If Saddam had given them any serious weapons, they most likely would have turned them on Baghdad and Saddam.

It's hard to believe Saddam would be that crazy. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proofs. Our adminstration offered none. It's a shame that our representatives in Congress didn't investigate the claims before given Bush his war.

And of course, it's an even bigger shame that the adminstration felt it was so urgent to start the war that they did almost no planning for the "nation building" end of things. Because of them, we will probably go from a series of secular dictators in Iraq to potentially a radical Islamic state, unstable and in constant civil war, making it a wonderful breeding ground for terroists of all kinds.

Thanks, George W.