A couple quick notes on the war and the administration

In their article on Bush's agreement to an investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding the war in Iraq, the Washington Post offers a nice summary of challenges to the various rantionales that were offered to try and justify the war.

Just as Kay has undermined the WMD rationale, a report published by the Army War College challenged the notion that the war in Iraq was part of the overall war on terrorism, while the group Human Rights Watch has disputed Bush's notion that the Iraq war was a humanitarian mission. Vice President Cheney has implicitly acknowledged that the Iraq war has not spurred peace in the Middle East, saying peace is not possible while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remains in power.

Cheney's remarks about the Weekly Standard article, particularly in light of the Pentagon's firm and public denunciation, angered former intelligence experts. "I just can't find words to describe how horrible it is," says Cannistraro. "For the vice president to undercut the head of intelligence at the Pentagon is unparalleled. It just illustrates the peculiar worldview Cheney has and how distorted it is. And it shows there's a real contempt for the professional intelligence community."

Intelligence professionals are particularly offended by what they see as Cheney's attempt to deliberately mislead and mischaracterize the article. In particular they point to his reference to the leaked information as an "assessment" as though it had been evaluated and judged to be creditable. "That was no assessment. It was a roundup of [unsubstantiated] reports," says McGovern, a steering group member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which has been critical of the Bush administration's handling of intelligence. "To call that an assessment is a joke and disavows what the Department of Defense said, for God's sake."

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The Weekly Standard article was drawn from a "top secret U.S. government memorandum" that the magazine depicted as proving bin Laden and Saddam had an "operational relationship" that dated back nearly a decade. The memo was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who also oversaw the unique Office of Special Plans within the Pentagon. This small office of handpicked operatives was created under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to act as a counter to the CIA and other intelligence agencies that were seen as insufficiently loyal in providing material to help make the administration's case about Saddam's imminent threat. Since its inception, the OSP has worked outside established intelligence channels, rarely sharing its intelligence information for peer review, and has been a direct source of information, often faulty, for the White House.

Following Feith's testimony about alleged ties between Saddam and external terrorist groups before Congress last July 10, he was pressed in a follow-up letter from Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., respectively the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to provide the evidence that backed up his assertions. In response, Feith's office cited 50 instances of raw intelligence that suggested ties between the Iraqi dictator and the al-Qaida leader. Meanwhile, Feith's report also found its way to the Weekly Standard.