That's encouraging
Chalk up another one for faith-based governance.
Prewar claims by the United States that Iraq was producing biological weapons were based almost entirely on accounts from a defector who was described as "crazy" by his intelligence handlers and a "congenital liar" by his friends. The defector code-named "Curveball" spoke with alarming specificity about Iraq's alleged biological weapons programs and fleet of mobile labs. But postwar investigations found that he wasn't even in Iraq at times when he claimed to have taken part in illicit weapons work.
Despite persistent doubts about his credibility, Curveball's claims were included in the Bush administration's case for war without so much as a caveat. And when CIA analysts argued after the invasion that the agency needed to admit that it had been duped, they were forced out of their jobs.
Sigh. George Tenet and Jerry Bremer, on the other hand, get the Presidential Medal of Freedom and everybody else responsible for the gigantic screw-up gets shiny new promotions.
The Post on Wolfowitz Lawyers, Guns and Money
I've been trying to break my lifelong habit of reading far too much of the New York Times, which causes me all kinds of psychic consternation. (There's half a dozen names--Gerth, Nagourney, Wilgoren, etc., who have me muttering under my breath before I've read a word of the article). I've been using the Washington Post as a sort of methodone, and what everyone was telling me is correct--it really is a better paper. But DeLong is right--this editorial is breathtakingly bad and deeply insulting. Here's the crux:
Mr. Wolfowitz's critics, domestic as well as international, should now get beyond their dislike of his role in the Iraq war and give him a chance to succeed at one of the world's hardest jobs
Despite persistent doubts about his credibility, Curveball's claims were included in the Bush administration's case for war without so much as a caveat. And when CIA analysts argued after the invasion that the agency needed to admit that it had been duped, they were forced out of their jobs.
Sigh. George Tenet and Jerry Bremer, on the other hand, get the Presidential Medal of Freedom and everybody else responsible for the gigantic screw-up gets shiny new promotions.
