A "whitewash" would say, "Our intelligence was good. The weapons just haven't been found yet. They could be in Syria."

Several of the commissioners themselves have appeared on TV news to say that intelligence gathering and analyzing capabilities are a mess and have been for years. They also say that the Administration was insufficiently skeptical of the digests it received. That doesn't sound like a whitewash of anybody. The classified version of the report is said to be even more scathing.

The published version says the Administration was "dead wrong" in its
beliefs about Iraqi WMDs. People familiar with bureaucratic reports will know that language that blunt is nearly unheard of. It's like saying, "You idiots."