[mburbank]

I couldn't agree more with your speciffic complaint. I'm not very big on massive government conspiracies. The require too much competence from too many people.

My point is merely that you can have it both ways, ie. really dumb and really smart at the same time.

It was really dumb for Bush to believe the speciffics on what Cheney told him about Iraqs nuclear capacity. It is really dumb of Bush to accept the argument "Well, we still know it, it was just the proof we put forward was forgery about something we know to be true but can't prove."

It is really smart of Chenney to keep that perception alive long after it's been proven false. All he has to do is keep dropping it into interviews and a huge percentage of voters think it's true.

The issue of Iraqi nukes (and I think Iraqi WMD in general) is stupidity, credulousness, arrogance, etc. on W's part and a small scale conspiracy on Chenney and Rumsfelds parts, with grudging cooperation from Rice and Powell. This is not to say they didn'tg believe it, just tht they knew they didn't have any solid intelligence and were so sure they get some once we took over Iraq they were happy to pretend we did.

Like I say. Small scale. Especially where intelligenc is highly classified and can be witheld vitually orever, you only need a handful of people on board, and a slightly larger number willing to look the other way or not complain to the press. Both ways at once. Smart and stupid. Bumbling and Coniving. Like Iran Contra and the Monica/dress/purgery/impeachment saga, and watergate and the Gukf of Tonkin.