Truth Matters

while you're at the Times site, don't miss Kristof on why we should care about the WMD search. An apt title, Missing in Action: Truth. Why?
"[Because it does matter, enormously, for American credibility. After all, as Ari Fleischer said on April 10 about W.M.D.: "That is what this war was about."
Moreover, i commend to you Mr. Hersh's work on the topic. A comprehensive "history" of a "small group of eight or nine people made the case and won."
The group? " They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal�a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon�s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community."
What did they "win?" "By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon�s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush�s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq�s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda." (the president's ears)
Why does it matter? Read the article.
But back to Kristof. As my pops mentioned in conversation last night, it is sickening to watch both the President and hopeful-Lieberman repeat the same schtick that the US was directly threatened (presumably by weapons that Iraq would have no hesitation sending our way.) Indeed, Bush, and I assume Lieberman would chime in, was happy to let us assume that inaction would likely lead to a mushroom cloud somewhere over America. Well. I'll strap on a helmet and join the fight faster than Bush can hitch a ride to an aircraft carrier if that's the case.
But...was that the case? If not, (indeed even if there were quiet doubts) then it disturbes me that our leaders would assert something so confidently for the sole purpose of spooking us into support for the war. (and knowing that once it went by fairly quickly, we'd stop caring about the justification and only about images of toppled tyrants. remember, most voters don;t have to deal with angry diplomats and foreign relations.)
In sum, as Kristof writes, invoking a bit of history:
"The C.I.A. was terribly damaged when William Casey, its director in the Reagan era, manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the Soviet threat in Central America to whip up support for Ronald Reagan's policies. Now something is again rotten in the state of Spookdom."