Bush lied

That's the blunt conclusion of a five-year inquiry by the US Senate into how the US President and his underlings built the case for invading Iraq:

The 170-page report accuses Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials of repeatedly overstating the Iraqi threat in the emotional aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its findings were endorsed by all eight committee Democrats and two Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

In a statement accompanying the report, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the intelligence panel, said, “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”

And the cost of that lie has been hundreds of thousands of dead, a massive recruiting poster and training ground for terrorists, and ongoing global instability. But hey, Bush got to prove he was a bigger man than his dad, so it must all be OK, right?

Meanwhile, the White House is still pretending it was all the fault of the CIA, while Republicans are calling it "selective" and a waste of time. Because democratic oversight of the executive is clearly a Bad Thing, and allowing it is giving in to terrorism.