The Washington Post has a great article up this morning that helps us see the forest for all those trees.
The Post identifies the huge looming story encompassing Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, yellowcake and those State of the Union speeches:
George W. Bush took us to war on the basis of a fraudulent claim that anybody — the President himself, the CIA, members of Congress, foreign governments, journalists — with access to the document could have exposed as fraudulent. It was a matter of a quick Google search. An Italian journalist quickly uncovered the fraud. So did the government of France. So did Joseph Wilson. But the President, the CIA, and the Congress didn’t take the time to find the clear case of fraud in WMD claims, and when informed of the fraud chose to obstinately and counterfactually look the other way.
The devastation of Iraq and the crippling of American military might is the result. Given the opportunity to take a lesson from this story, will we look the other way now?
