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Bush on MEET THE PRESS
...Bush should consider the possibility that he was lied to, not by the CIA or the DIA, who included caveats, but by Dick Cheney and the Neocons and Mossad and Ahmad Chalabi and Iyad Alawi, who peddled rather fantastic stories to him.

What I remember is that former US Marine and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter said that 85-95 percent of Iraq's chemical weapons had been destroyed. He was pilloried by Rupert Murdoch's news organs as a Baathist lackey. Will W. now call Ritter to the White House to give him a personal apology?

By the way, Reuters reports, ' French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France had not reached the same conclusions as ``the Anglo-Saxons'' on the basis of available intelligence such as satellite photographs. She said that was why Paris had argued against last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and in favour of letting U.N. inspectors keep searching for the alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD). ``It's true that intelligence...has its limits. Knowing how to recognise its limits and find other means is the way to avoid committing mistakes,'' she told a news conference.'

So, it just isn't true that other countries necessarily thought the US intelligence was valid. That countries like Spain and Portugal and Denmark bought the Cheney version is unremarkable; they get their intelligence on issues like Iraq from . . . the United States....