ubertuber

I'll answer your points out of order:

2) I did. When someone is making a case for something, I generally listen to their reasons when I am evaluating the arguments. I will say that I, at the time of invasion, supporting pre-emptive action against Iraq, based on things that the Bush Administration claimed. Colin Powell's presentation was advanced as findings of fact or near certainty. Now we know that most of it was based on wishful thinking, out of date information, or mistakes that the WH/CIA should plausibly have caught or qualified as such. My support was ill-placed and my trust was undeserved. Now that more information is available about the full scope of intelligence vs. the interpreted and filtered versions we were fed, I feel quite different about the ethical basis of pre-emptive invasion.

1) Intelligence agencies bear a responsibility to collect information and synthesize/analyze it in terms of plausible trends/outcomes/meanings. This did not happen to the appropriate degree. Part of the problem is that people in a position to know (Tenet, etc.) failed to stand up to their superiors who were intentionally misusing and misrepresenting data. I absolutely assign primary responsibility to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice. It is the executive branch which has the power to set the incentives and standards to which intelligence agencies are held. Through these things, the intelligence landscape is shaped in a real way. If what Tenet alleges is true (and I think his claims are consonant with my recollection of the tenor of administration arguments) and the Bush Adminstration began with the premise that Iraq was a threat that needed to be addressed militarily and cherry-picked evidence from there - of course blame and responsibility lie with the President and his staff. Who else could it be?

3) Trying to pin this on members of Congress or suggesting that their support is just lame - it's only one step away from "Clinton/Reagan did it too!" The vast majority of people in the House and Senate don't have access to anything like a full range of unfiltered/uninterpreted intelligence. They rely on the statements of the executive branch or the reports of the agencies (which, as we've known for some time were pressured to produce estimates that supported preconcieved policy notions). Who in the House or Senate has access to the necessary information to know better and a place from which to do verbal and PR battle with the White House? If that person existed and did that, would you have done anything other than scream that they were advancing an agenda solely to oppose the White House or that they were "soft on terror"? I doubt it - because the White House and RNC have worked very hard to paint any opposing parties as soft on national security, and then to make that charge the kiss of death through fear mongering. I say again, implying that because people not in a position to know better supported the invasion has anything to do with it being right or with the White House's performance is just lame.

My point? Either the WH willfully misled the public or they made a series of horrendous miscalculations that a reasonable amount of due diligence would have prevented. At the very least, assumptions were presented as fact and not deductions were not qualified as such. Both of those scenarios justify an investigation that could lead to criminal charges or even impeachment.

EDIT FOR SUBSEQUENT REPLIES

That's absolutely the most disgusting and rankly horrifying thing I've read in a long time. Because Sadaam "wasn't humble" there was a justification for pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign country and the ensuing death of numerous civilians and our own troops?????

Regarding Bush's staff, he's the boss. It's his responsibility to find people that will speak up, and it's his responsibility to create a culture in which advisors are able to do so. Indications have been that the perception of loyalty has been cultivated much more highly than either of these things. Consequently, it's Bush's responsbility that he fucked the first two points up and accordingly made really bad/uninformed/unchallenged decisions. In terms of the Congress, a lot of people in Congress DID say that - and as I mentioned before, they were working off of incomplete information in any case. They were not only challenged, but painted as soft on national security, easy on terror, and implied to be disloyal!

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam