Surprise! Bush Exaggerated Iraq "Evidence"

We all knew this to be true, but it's amazing that this report took five years to be completed and wasted untold millions of dollars.

Bush Overstated Evidence on Iraq, Senators Report

WASHINGTON — A long-delayed Senate committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda.

The report was released Thursday after years of partisan squabbling, and it represented the close of five years of investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into the use, abuse and faulty assessments of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

That some Bush administration claims about the Iraqi threat turned out to be false is hardly new. But the report, based on a detailed review of public statements by Mr. Bush and other officials, was the most comprehensive effort to date to assess whether policy makers systematically painted a more dire picture about Iraq than was justified by the available intelligence.

Of course, Bush loyalists claim that the report is a "waste of committee time and rescourses" and the White House is calling it a "selective view." I'm just wondering how "selective" the view is of Iran's nuclar ambitions and their military and weapons support against US troops and the government in Iraq. Actually, I'm not wondering. I know it's bullshit.