More proof that the Iraq War is a lie (as if we needed any)

What does it say about the condition of this country that a bombshell like the one that Ron Suskind recently dropped about the Bush administration's case for war is not front page bold-type news?

What does it say about the condition of this country that for many Americans, this news is just confirmation of what they have believed all along?

And what does it say about the condition of this country that there are Americans who, in spite of this evidence, will still say the war was justified and that Junior is an honorable man?

Ron Suskind is a well-respected reporter and a Pulitzer Prize winner. In his new book, The Way of the World, he reports that not only did Junior and company know before the invasion that Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction, but that they manufactured evidence to deliberately deceive the public into believing the opposite.

Let me repeat: Suskind reports that the Bush administration manufactured the case for war.

It breaks down like this: Saddam Hussein's chief of intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, was actually an informer for British and American intelligence services. In January, 2003, two months before the invasion, Habbush transmitted information asserting that Iraq had no WMD and that Saddam's evasiveness was an attempt to deceive his mortal enemies, the Iranians. The Bush administration, eager for war, disregarded the information. When the invasion began, Habbush was secretly resettled to Jordan and paid $5 million to keep his mouth shut. Note that, as far as the American public knew, Habbush was one of the military's most wanted men, having been assigned the Jack of Diamonds in Junior's famous deck of cards.

(If I were Mr. Habbush, I might be a little nervous. Junior and Big Dick have a lot riding on him keeping mum.)

Sleeping well, Tahir?

Suskind further reports that the White House gave then-CIA chief George Tenet a special assignment: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that 911 attacker Mohammed al Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and that Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization." (Yeah, al Qaeda...how convenient!)

And, do you remember the Downing Street Memo? It was a transcription of a meeting attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that stated that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Suskind's reporting would seem to confirm the worst implications of that document.

The reactions from all the usual suspects are predictable enough: the White House has called the reporting "absurd" and begun attacking Suskind's credibility. George Tenet says he can't remember anything. And Nancy Pelosi, instead of calling for hearings, continues to sit on her worthless, worthless ass.

The Iraq war was a gigantic, deliberate lie. It's consquences have been murderous and catastrophic. It was manufactured by Junior and Cheney. Is anybody going to do anything about it?