>There seems to be a lot of flap in the papers lately about the Bush
>lies/incompetence. "Tenet falls on sword..." etc. What's going on? Didn't the media
>know that it was all made up to begin with? Why do they care about it now? What has
>changed? I don't get it.
>
No, the media didn't think it was "all made up to begin with." In fact,
almost _nobody_ thought that. Even antiwar activists were vocal on the
point that much of Saddam's WMD armory was real, because we kept
commenting on how we'd sold it to him in the first place, and all the
U.S had to do to confirm the stockpiles was to check the sales receipts
(pace Bill Hicks). Consider, also, that Saddam Hussein had a long track
record of consolidating his power, of desiring new and more powerful
weapons, of needing to display his military strength to countries such
as Kuwait, Iran and Israel, and that such people are extremely
_unlikely_ to disarm if they can help it.
So even when particular claims were debunkable, nobody had any reason to suppose that it was "all made up."