WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.
The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.
There's an obvious problem here and it starts way back when the Bush Administration decided they needed to sex up the intelligence so they could legitimize the invasion of a country with a secular government which was more than indifferent, if not actively hostile to, al Qaeda. The problem is the Bush Administration has no credibility in these matters and they have no one to blame but the Bush Administration.
Having "fixed the intelligence around the policy" in the past, having obscured this and then having denied it long past the point of no return, any claim of broad agreement from American intelligence agencies is tarnished and difficult to accept.
By their actions the Bush Administration has simply lost any claim to believability; indeed most rational people now start from the assumption that the claims of this administration, if not outright false on their face, are based on dubious and tortured abuse of the actual facts.
They have nobody to blame for this reality but themselves, and the truth is that this is far more dangerous, far more damaging to national security, than anything their opponents have done. Indeed, it is far more damaging to the functioning of the democracy, this democracy, our democracy, than anything al Qaeda could have dreamed up.
Give 'em what they want.
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