What a lovely little lie:  Bush's BIG Lie that sold the War, Exposed.    James Woolsey, former CIA director and unapoligetic neo-con, has been -- as usual -- on the airwaves as much as possible decrying his successors and doing what he can to defend the Republic of FUBAR.   Woolsey still insist for example, like Dick Cheney, that there was strong evidence of a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, a drumbeat he has been pushing so long he is more cult member than policy expert.   Via this report from Knight-Ridder comes the story (not discussed by the Senate in its report)  of how Woolsey subverted the CIA to take the now thoroughly debunked Chalabi relative known as "Curveball" to the Department of Defense and his fellow neo-cons, through another defector Maj. Mohammad Harith .   Curveball & Harith became the Bush Administration's shining piece of intelligence on Saddam's "mobile weapons labs", used so famously by Colin Powell at the UN in the greatest Powerpoint Presentation ever made by a 6th Grader.     The fact that Harith & "Curveball's" information was complete bullshit,  and as soon became known, palpably so, didn't matter to those determined to have the lovely little war they really wanted.   

R. James Woolsey's role as a go-between was detailed in a classified Defense Department report chronicling how the defector's assertion came to be included in the Bush administration's case for war even after the defector was determined to be a fabricator.

  Again, remember the Bush Administration's contention that "we went to war because we all thought this stuff was true"  (which they knew to be false) and how the GOP is trying to cover for them.    For example, Pat Robert's statement yesterday:   

Mr. Roberts said he was "not too sure" that the administration would have invaded if it had known how flimsy the intelligence was on Iraq and illicit weapons. Instead, the senator said, Mr. Bush might well have advocated efforts to maintain sanctions against Iraq and to continue to try to unearth the truth through the work of United Nations inspectors. "I don't think the president would have said that military action is justified right now," Mr. Roberts said. If the administration had been given "accurate intelligence," he said, Mr. Bush "might have said, 'Saddam's a bad guy, and we've got to continue with the no-fly zones and with inspections.' "

  This notion that Bush would NOT have invaded is, of course, all unadulterated crap.  An apologia from Roberts for that which Bush himself is pathologically unable to offer in any fashion.  Hell, Cheney is still leading the charge, which Bush has to follow that all the things disproven are still true -- and Woolsey is one of the more prominent foot soldiers.   It all comes down to this:   THEY KNEW THEIR PRIME PIECE OF INFO, PUSHED FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION WAS WRONG, BUT THEY PUSHED IT ANYWAY!!   Colin Powell before the United Nations, February 5, 2003:   

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents. Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.   The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, UN inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000. The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. 12 technicians died from exposure to biological agents.

      By this time, Curveball's information was being used not only by Powell, but by others, including the President.   

After several meetings, a DIA debriefer concluded that some of Harith's information "seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished" and he apparently "had been coached on what information to provide." ...

However, further intelligence assessments in April, May and July 2002 questioned his credibility - including a "fabricator notice" issued by the DIA. Nevertheless, Harith's claim was included in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and cited by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union message.

Yep, another lie in the Bush State of the Union -- unrelated to the Yellow Cake Lie (and it is a lie Rethuglicans).   In January 2003, the "Codpieced Crusader" said the following:

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

Two of the three, were Harith & Curveball, the other likely an Iraqi from the Iraqi National Congress (Chalabi's organization, maybe the great Conman himself) nodding enthusiastically to Curveball's story.  Yeh, real credible.

So there you have it.  It's plain for all to see (though some will refuse -- "it's all too complicated" for Professor Reynold's I presume).  Remember what Dick Clarke said (never really contradicted) that on September 12, 2001, Bush came up to him and made it clear he wanted whatever evidence he could get to connect Iraq to the attack of September 11th?  Well, that seems especially damning in light of this newest evidence.

-- We want to invade Iraq.

-- We need some evidence to invade Iraq.

-- Let's throw out whatever we can now and then hope we get lucky.

-- I'm a War President.

No, You are a:

WAR MONGERER!