There are still some undeniable facts about what led the US and its allies to war in Iraq. Saddam was required by his cease fire agreement and 17 UN resolutions to account for his WMD. It was his burden and not the CIA or US intelligence's burden to account for his WMD and have the weapons inspectors supervise their destructions.

He wholly failed in this obligation and played a cat and mouse game with the inspectors and thumbed his nose at his obligations under the cease fire agreement and the UN resolutions. He could have avoided the war simply by complying. While the post war analysis could not find most of his WMD what it really means is that much of it is still unaccounted for. This should be a bigger worry than the political second guessing of those who did not want to use force in Iraq to make him comply with his obligations.

He also brutalized his own people in violation of his obligations under the UN resolutions and paid money to the families of terrorist Palestinians. Many of the thugs that he used to brutalize the population of Iraq are still doing it under different management.

A non politicized look at intelligence failures is worthwhile, but this second guessing and name calling is not productive to dealing with our foreign enemies and it should not be used to make bad faith charges against political opponents in this country.