It's easier to destroy than to create

When President John F. Kennedy's emissary, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, asked French President Charles de Gaulle if he wanted to see the aerial photographs confirming the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the normally difficult de Gaulle replied: "No, the word of the President of the United States is good enough for me."

Today we have former Secretary of State Colin Powell apologizing for the stain on his record for his pre-Iraq invasion presentation at the U.N. Remember this line, "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." Last year Powell said, "But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading and for that I am, I am disappointed and regret it." Boy, I'd love to see the garbage they didn't include in that speech. So would the Senate but don't hold your breath waiting for it. Apparently Scooter "innocent until proven guilty" Libby was a huge force in trying to stick Cheney's hand up Powell's colon to get him to say even more fraudulently manufactured intelligence during that speech but failed.

Why is this important besides some short term effect (if that) on some Congressional elections? Because it's not about that. It's like worrying about a company making it's profit numbers for the quarter without worrying about going bankrupt next year.

A front page story in the New York Times on the efforts to use intelligence to try to convince the world that Iran is actively building a nuclear weapons capability. Now even without an intelligence apparatus the Curmudgeon knows that Iran is working 24/7/365 to go nuclear. But my word isn't accepted in world capitals, although it should be. The NYT described senior American intelligence officials on a road show with what they claim is a stolen Iranian laptop computer filled with nuclear weapons building evidence. "The computer contained studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead, said European and American officials who had examined the material, including a telltale sphere of detonators to trigger an atomic explosion. The documents specified a blast roughly 2,000 feet above a target - considered a prime altitude for a nuclear detonation." the Times wrote.

"Nonetheless, doubts about the intelligence persist among some foreign analysts. In part, that is because American officials, citing the need to protect their source, have largely refused to provide details of the origins of the laptop computer beyond saying that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a longtime contact in Iran." Maybe Ahmed Chalabi again? Who knows. It's as good a guess as anything.

And what does the world think of our intelligence now after Iraq? "I can fabricate that data," a senior European diplomat said of the documents. "It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt." After the faulty (translation: "dead wrong" not a "slam dunk" Iraq intelligence while, "few countries are willing to believe Iran's denials about nuclear arms, few are willing to accept the United States' weapons intelligence without question."

And even if the Iranian government admitted they are close to finishing a nuclear bomb they could also say about stopping them "you and who's army?" Not ours since it is stuck in Iraq and I doubt we could send 500,000 troops for some Operation Iranian Freedom. The cupboard is bare. This is true tragedy of what W and his capos have done. They have made sure we can't respond to the actual threats in the world, only the fabricated ones. And what's worse is that they can't even seem to defeat those.

Bonus Alert: Capt. Fogg clears away the fog here today. It's a must read. If I were him I'd just re-post today's rant for the next four days. Bravo Foggy.