Al's Opinions

Regarding the recent report about intelligence failures, in which the CIA and various military intelligence agencies allowed wrong assessments about Iraq's weapons programs to be given to and used by the President and other adminstration officials to justify the war against Iraq, it seems to me that the quoted title of a book by Rush Limbaugh captures the thinking of the neocons who are now in charge of the country. It is reported that one intelligence group, located in the State Department, got it right. Their analysts concluded that there was no credible evidence to support the existence of active nuclear or biological weapons programs in Iraq. However, their assessment was squelched by John Bolton, who at the time was a high-ranking official in the State Department. Bolton and other neocons saw the skepticism of the State Department analysts as contradicting their picture of Iraq and the world. In other words, Iraq had to have a weapons program because that was the way things ought to be. There ought to be a strong argument in favor of invading the country.