[Iwo Jima]

I think that the CIA wanted the war in Iraq in order to achieve some major objectives of its own, but did not want Bush to get any credit for it. So, the plan was to have a war that would take Bush out. Now that's having your (yellow) cake, and eating it, too.

That would explain why the CIA so often said/did things both publicly and privately that justified the war, and then after the fact did a complete reversal.

The CIA is not inept. It just looks that way if you don't understand their agenda.

[piasa]

I think the last thing the Wilson fan club of moles wanted was a war- they tried to stave it off by trying to make Iraq look bulletproof because of its WMD, something Iraq cultivated too in the believe we wouldn't dare throw our troops at poison gas or some bioattack. Hence the anthrax and all the scare efforts... it was like the dreaded "Afghan winter we're all going to die" thing the mediots were floating.

That anthrax was a warning not to go into Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's regime was too much of a cash cow to butcher, in their view.