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[ron thigpen <ron AT fuzzsonic.com>]

Tony Spencer wrote:

> So now we know Bush cast his spell on :
> * All of Congress
> * MI6
> * Russian intelligence
> * U.N.
> as well as the Clinton administration in the late 90's.

It's not about casting spells.  It's the hardnosed overselling of the 
same weak evidence that most everyone else was finding unconvincing.

Thousands of analysts, politicians and others would have had a chance to 
review different bits and pieces of the same stream of intelligence 
data.  Most saw it for what it was: concerning, and worthy of watching, 
but also spotty, inconclusive and with highly varying degrees of 
reliability.

Only one leader saw cause to goad his countrymen into a declaration of 
war on it's basis.

After viewing the sum of the actions of this administration, I can only 
surmise that they had already decided to go to war and were actively 
looking for justification, filtering evidence that disagreed with them, 
and placing too much faith in anything that seemed to provide support.

Conclusions should be chosen after a review of evidence, not the other 
way around.

--rt