Bush and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have blamed the CIA and its director George Tenet for the inaccurate information that Bush presented in his 2003 State of the Union address regarding Iraq’s alleged attempts to buy uranium in Africa as part of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. Within hours, Tenet issued a press release accepting full responsibility.

However, in September 2002 the CIA tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British government to remove the uranium claim from an intelligence document. Four months later Bush used the same claim in his annual speech to the nation. Clearly, the CIA had early doubts about the information.

Tenet took the blame for the administration’s hawks in the Pentagon, who had decided before Bush took office that Iraq would be invaded and set about finding or - if need be - manufacturing the evidence to bolster the need for war. Indeed, the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and Richard Perle’s Defense Policy Board, groups that most Americans have never heard of, have replaced the traditional intelligence agencies as the Bush administration’s top source for Iraqi intelligence.

It seems the “professionals” over at the CIA just weren’t coming up with the right information.