If I was making allegations you'd be quite right to challenge me Ron. But I'm not. I don't think either of us have enough information to know what's crackpot and what's not.

It's quite true that many theories that seem absurd are in fact false. But it is also true that many plausible explanations are false.

The case that there were WMDs in Iraq seemed to many people far more plausible than the theory that our rulers were conspiring to lie about it. It seemed reasonable enough that General Powell was right to believe the information with which he had been supplied and was transmitting in his speech to the UN. He has now said his informants misled him, which would have seemed a pretty crackpot allegation.

We shouldn't rush to judgement in either direction. We don't have the information, and it's not our job to guess.