So when people said they didn't believe what Bush and Blair and co were telling us about all these things, we were told to belt up and accept that they knew much more about it because they had all this secret information. And now, when it turns out that the secret information wasn't information, but speculation and fantasy, we are told that they aren't to blame, because how could they be expected to be able to tell the difference?

It seems pretty evident that the people in charge of the "intelligence agencies" were in the business of supplying the "information" they knew was required of them, to provide a cover for their owners in government. (Just read this story from today's Observer - "Spy chiefs 'withdrew' Saddam arms claim", which includes an account of how the relevant British intelligence agency was put under pressure in this way.

"The crucial revelation concerns MI6's climbdown over the intelligence produced days after an anguished appeal from Downing Street for more convincing evidence for the dossier. Subsequently, John Scarlett - chair of the joint intelligence committee, which supervised the compiling of the dossier - hardened up the draft dossier's suggestion that Iraq 'probably' had more recently produced stocks of banned weapons to the assertion that it 'has' continued to produce them. That allowed Blair to make the dramatic claim in his foreword to the dossier that evidence received only 'in recent months' showed how serious the threat was. "

Would you buy a used war from these guys?