Tom, as I said: Its not a "conspiracy" in the sense that he willfully acted against fact etc- it was just sheer bloody-mindedness. He decided that Saddam was bad, had to go, was hiding WMD, chatting up al-qaeda etcetc. All he WANTED to hear from the intelligence organs was what he could use to support himself and make his case.

Its caled selection pressure. The same thing led to the bay of pigs. The same thing was done over and over in Vietnam. All throughout the 80's, the CIA ignored OBVIOUS signs that the Soviet Union was collapsing because Reagan believed otherwise and nobody had the cojones to stand up to the old man.

Its been done often in the US- we seem to be vulnerable to it. The professional 'lifer' intel-guys tend to tell the current Admin what they want to hear, and the Political folks pull strings to make sure that 'lifers' who say things they don't want to hear have their careers ended.

That it was less about nefariousness and more about subborness and ignorance doesn't make it any 'better' for Bush and his cronies- it makes it worse. I think his entore administration deserves a public whipping.

So again- you were lied to and you still don't care. Doesn't that bother you?

Davin