Publius

Really? is that so? well that explains the Security Council vote then doesn’t it? Actually most people who were paying attention knew that Saddam probably didn’t have WMD. Sure he wanted to have them, no question there, but the fact is that he didn’t have them. And how did most (European) countries know that he didn’t have them? Russian intelligence reports. After Powell delivered his supposed "evidence" to the Security Council Russian intelligence was able to discredit nearly everything that the Bush administration was claiming about Iraqi WMD programs. The problem was that the Bush administration was taking as fact British intelligence reports without double checking their sources. Well hate to break the bad new but unlike what “James Bond” may teach us, British “intelligence” is some of the worst in the world, always has been. (Heck even Churchill didn’t trust it which is why he privately funded his own intelligence gathering agency during WW2). Russian intelligence, on the other hand, at least so far as the Middle East and Central Asia goes, is still some of the best in the world. Why no one in the Bush administration thought to cross-check the British intelligence with what the Russian intelligence was saying is beyond me, but then again I’m not paid to think so why ask why?