The only way to resolve all these things is a full enquiry. Even with the techinical language the effect seems to have convinced many people an imminent threat was being talked about, and that it was known Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Like most people I think, I thought from the way these things were said the above was known to be true.

So if it amounts to carefully chosen language that nonetheless created a false impression then that needs to be fully investigated. The whole thing is simple enough to work out, you just compare what the various analysts said with what the higher ups said, and see if anyone exaggerated it.

Exaggeration is almost a definition of a political statement, so it would not be surprising if they exaggerated the threat. As the saying goes, it's not the intelligence it's the coverup. Bush is in trouble over this because he appears to be covering up lies. If he wasn't making things up to persuade people then it could be cleared up very quickly. If he was he would be better off getting it out in the open, saying he erred on the side of caution and move on.

What he is doing though is dragging it out by trying to be secretive. The web site did take a cheap shot but it was closer to the truth than many would like. From the point of view of the original Bush doctrine Iraq was a disaster. From the point of view of a learning experience and working with many unknowns after 9/11 it was less so.

The facts seem to be that Iraq was not any kind of threat so a lot of money and lives could have been saved by not invading. I believe virtually no one (including Powell) would have invaded if they knew Iraq had no WMD. The public would have been against it, they were against it for most of the build up and around the world about 80% of the population was against it.