The Niger Intelligence Success Behind Bush's Iraq Advendture
"For more than two years it has been widely reported that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of intelligence failures. But in fact ... the Iraq war started because of an extraordinary intelligence success—specifically, an astoundingly effective campaign of disinformation ... the Niger claim, unlike other allegations, can't be dismissed as an innocent error or blamed on ambiguous data ... Even after information in the Niger documents was repeatedly rejected by the C.I.A. and the State Department, hawkish neocons managed to circumvent seasoned intelligence analysts and insert the Niger claims into Bush's State of the Union address ... By the time the U.S. invaded Iraq, in March 2003, this apparent black-propaganda operation had ... led us into war."