To oversimplify a bit: The reason they were wrong before 9/11 is that they did not apply worst-case or aggressive interpretations on the data. The reason they were wrong about Iraq is that they did.

The CIA is in the position, and always has been, of the cop who has to make decisions based on limited data. Is that a knife? Or a spoon? Is he reaching for a gun, or his wallet? Why did he move his hand there? Are the people in back of the car hiding something, or just nervous?

The difference is that if a cop screws up under these conditions, normally at most one or two people are hurt or killed. If the CIA screws up, you could have a war that wasn't really necessary yet, a massive loss of American lives in a WMD attack, or something else entirely. But it wouldn't be something small.

I saw the intelligence photos that were made public, and the analyses of some of these intelligence issues. It wasn't as cut and dried as some people think. I did enough research on those trailers to satisfy me that that question is still open.

Given the lengths to which Saddam apparently went to keep the status of his WMD uncertain, a case can be made that the CIA is no more to blame than the cop who shoots a man who held something in his pocket pointed at an innocent bystander, that turns out to be his finger. The cop would be even more justified if that man had a known and proven record of weapons possession and of shooting people under those circumstances