WMD Deja Vu

I spent a good bit of yesterday attempting to digest the mountain of new information on just how incompetent and dangerous the Bush Administration is and how close we are too complete and utter catastrophe. These people are to geopolitics what a monkey with a sledgehammer is to a glass factory.

I knew this bit sounded familiar:

Although international concern is growing about Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions, diplomats here say most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran.

Hmmm... Where have I heard that before... Oh right.

In fact, the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbors – or U.S. troops in the region, or even Israel – is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable. The inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they've begun to express that anger privately in no uncertain terms.

U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.

Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found "nothing."

Example: Saddam's presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found "nothing."

Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the U.N. calls the "Iraqi alibi air tight."

Note the date of the CBS story: Feb. 20, 2003. That's right folks. It was publicly known that the "aluminum tubes" meme was bullshit before we forced the UN to withdraw the inspectors and commenced to shocking and awing. But I digress.

These folks not only sing the same song over and over. They don't even change the arrangement.