The intelligence community in the United States, despite a large budget and mass-spying legislation that broadens federal powers while eroding an individual’s constitutional rights, were “dead wrong” in most of their judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the war. The US presidential report goes on to say that the US knows “disturbingly little” about the threats posed by many of the nation’s most dangerous adversaries.

“We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. We simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude.”

“The report implicitly absolves the Bush administration of manipulating the intelligence used to launch the 2003 Iraq war, putting the blame for bad intelligence directly on the intelligence community.”

“Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the worlds most dangerous actors. In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or 10 years ago.”

That said, I am not convinced that George W. Bush, and by way of blood spatter convergence our very own HoWARd, is free from responsibility.

Any mid-level public servant will ask for supporting data for any claim that involves using government owned paperclips let alone funding a preemptive strike.