Martini Republic - Lead, follow, or have a drink.: "Not exactly news that the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Community were dead wrong about Iraq's supposed WMD programs, but the question of 'why' still should predominate the television press, which is instead consumed with promoting agenda-furthering lies and distortions about the Schiavo tragedy.

The disastrous failure has its genesis in the Bush administration's eagerness to go to war with Iraq on any pretext.  In today's article  in the Post on the commission's findings:

. . .the commission described a kind of echo chamber in which plausible hypotheses hardened into firm assertions of fact, eventually becoming immune to evidence.

Leading analysts accepted at face value data supporting the existence of illegal weapons, the commission said, and discounted counter-evidence as skillful Iraqi deception.

Of course, if you dismiss hard facts which contradict your thesis, and posit the inevitable truth of information from questionable sources, you will reach a wrong conclusion.  The source in this case was a drunk named 'Curveball', the brother of an aide to Neocon darling, liar, and racketeer Ahmed Chalabi."

(Via Martini Republic.)