Criminal Or Stupid, Take Your Pick

So far the Deserter and his neocon henchman appear to be getting away with the absurd contention that they are mere victims of the CIA's faulty intelligence reports and therefore bear no responsibility for the criminal invasion of Iraq. Setting aside for a moment the mountain of evidence indicating that the neocons were the champions of Ahmed Chalabi's disinformation campaign and consistently attacked CIA analyses of Iraq's WMD capabilities that were distinctly equivocal, why shouldn't the Deserter and the neocons be held accountable for their failure to correctly interpret CIA analyses and adequately police the intelligence agencies? Why shouldn't the Deserter be held accountable for fully understanding that the CIA's case for Iraqi WMDs was weak (Deserter to Tenet in December 2002: "Is that all you've got?) but then going to war on the basis of Tenet's feckless "slam dunk" assurance?

Paul Craig Roberts is a conservative columnist at Antiwar.com. As best I can tell, there is little in the political sphere other than opposition to the Deserter's folly that Roberts and I agree on. But Roberts hits the nail on the head in his evaluation of whitewash report produced by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The only open question is whether President Bush was an active participant in the disinformation or was deceived like the American public. If he knowingly participated in the deception, he must be impeached. If he was deceived by his own appointees, why hasn't he fired them? Bush's reelection would signify that the American people lack the competence or character for self-rule.

The report from the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence proves once again that government lacks the moral integrity to conduct an investigation. The senators did not bring responsibility to any individuals for a gratuitous invasion that has generated hatred of, and insecurity for, Americans for decades to come. Instead, the senators' report held accountable that which cannot be held accountable: "the process."

November will tell us whether there is any moral integrity left in the electorate or whether nothing remains but partisan politics – my party right or wrong.

Roberts is absolutely correct: either the Deserter and the neocon criminals participated in the fraud or they were credulous and incompetent victims of it. Either way, the SSCI intelligence report damns the administration, and the Deserter's murderous gang must go.