The Senate's investigation found that the CIA in particular was portraying its conclusions as rock-solid when they were, in fact, paper-thin (couldn't work scissors in).
The recently completed report by the Presidential Commision found the same thing. There were (quite reasonable) assumptions made about Saddam. These were then elevated to the stature of proven facts.
Administration officials rely on the products of the intelligence community. These products were wrong, and more importantly, lacked the appropriate caveats. Perle was as much a victim of faulty intelligence as the Congressman. Why should he apologize?
Saddam was pointing a gun at us. Only he and a couple of key advisors knew it wasn't loaded. In fact, he went out of his way to convince the world it was loaded. Saddam and his loyalists are responsible for the deaths of our servicemen & women.
I respect your intelligence----I really do----but the answer to this is so elemental, I won't even post it....out of my deep respect for a fellow FReeper's opinion.