Was The Iraq War A Crime or a Mistake?--Yes

++Tony Cait, political columnist at New York Magazine, goes into the debate over intelligence failure or the Bush Administration's manipulation of intelligence. It depends on what side of the spectrum you are on. The idea is that many people outside of the W Administration believed that Saddam had WMD. So naturally, the Bush Administration did too and therefore were justified.

++He cites Doug Brooks then and now as quoting the Silberman-Robb investigation into intelligence failures but he notes Brooks studiously ignores the second report, which said the Administration manipulated the intelligence.

++A bit I would like to throw in here. The invasion of Iraq was a preemptory war, a violation of the entire American military doctrine to date. 

++Peter Beinert writing in the Atlantic said that it is irrelevant that people thought Saddam had chemical weapons because he had no delivery system to threaten the United States. And, about Tony Blair's "mushroom cloud" in an hour,almost all intelligence analysts had agreed that Saddam didn't have an active nuclear program. Beinert's point is that Iraq had no connection to 9-11 as the Bush Administration claimed and the intelligence community had denied. Saddam feared and loathed Al Qaeda.

++But this debate is interesting because Republicans can't seem to deal with it. And this is not the thing to become the issue in their presidential campaign. 

++Where is Andrew Sullivan when we need him?