Varying Requirements for Impeachment

[Undertoad]

If you read the rest of the memo it's clear that all involved believed in Saddam's WMD capability before the intelligence turn, and had their own intelligence to boot:

"...his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran..."

Roughly speaking, chem/bio but not nuke. What a relief.

"For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary."

Nobody stood up at that point, including "C", to say those WMDs didn't exist.

The meaning of the phrase "fixed around the policy" changes according to your narrative, your perception of the situation. Intelligence wasn't fixed around whether WMD existed. It seems like it was fixed around presenting the public reasons for the war, that were only considered after the private reasons made it seem like a good idea.

Is it heresy that the public and private reasons were different? No, they often have to be. It's crappy leadership if the public reasons don't hold up, which is why I didn't vote for the guy. But it's not *lying*.