[hot_pastrami]

From an MSNBC/Newsweek Article:

The saga of Curve Ball is just one of many wince-inducing moments to be found in the 500-page Senate report, which lays out how the U.S. intelligence community utterly failed to accurately assess the state of Saddam Hussein's programs for weapons of mass destruction—and how White House and Pentagon officials, intent on taking the country to war, unquestioningly embraced the flawed conclusions. In startling detail, the bipartisan report concludes that the CIA and other agencies consistently "overstated" the evidence that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was actively reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program.

Taken together, the facts in the report show that virtually every major claim President George W. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq—from Saddam's growing nuclear program to his close ties with Al Qaeda—was either wrong or exaggerated.

This report is pretty much a confirmation of strong suspicions. Yes, the Bush administration did unquestioningly pass lies and exaggerations to the people of the US, and the world, in order to start a war. Either the administration knew these were lies and acted despite them, or they were pitifully, embarrassingly incompetent in their fact-checking. Either way, I certainly don't trust them to make any more world-altering decisions. I hope to hell that Bush doesn't win this election.