I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone paying attention that Iraq has lead to an increase in terrorism and risk to the US or that the Cheney administration ignores, distorts, and lies about that data all the time.

In April, President Bush received the National Intelligence Estimate, which “represents a consensus view of the 16 separate spy services inside government.” NIEs are “the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces…and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence.”

Nevertheless, it’s news once again as we now have another official government document saying this while we have post-document statements by Bush and others that are completely contradictory to the report’s conclusions.

Bush is mendacious and we are weakened by Iraq.

In other news, dog bites man. News at 11.

It’s not that I want to be flippant or diminish the importance of this latest datapoint, it’s just that… this has all been known. The same way that those of us paying attention and not actually shitting our pants after 9/11 knew that the entire case for the invasion of Iraq was built on lies. It’s been known since the State Department report on terror in early 2004 (that they tried to bury) that terrorism was increased by Iraq. That we were creating new generations of motivated, trained, deadly terrorists. It has been known to the general public since 1999 that Bush was an empty, terror-filled, bully, lying suit with daddy issues of near mythic proportions. None of this is new.

Then again, maybe I just have outrage fatigue.

Whatever traction this issue may have, it is the fault of the media and the American populace that it has taken this long and they have gotten this far.

Update 1: see also, Altercation

Update 2: I may have spoken too soon as to this getting any traction outside of the blogosphere and a minor piece on NPR. Here are 5 current major news orgs website front pages (click for full picture). Of them, only CNN even references the NIE and it does so obliquely (”Dems: Leaked intel shows U.S. needs new leaders”). FSM, I love our media. Double point bonus to Disney “Path to 9/11″/ABC with their riveting prosthetic tail for dolphin story (the other 4 were that woman who killed some people, some divers deaths, U2 and Green Day in New Orleans, and the housing bubble burst. Keep up the quality work, ABC!)

ABC:

CBS:

CNN

Faux News:

MSNBC:

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