The National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank, according to an article in the Washington Post, states:

\Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of “professionalized” terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with “a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills,” said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. “There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries”\

Sure am glad we’re over fighting for our security.

Released yesterday was the information that the US has stopped searching for WMD in Iraq, with the head of the search, Mr Duelfer, concluding that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons at the time of the US-led invasion nearly two years ago.

US armed forces deaths in Iraq are now at 1362, nearly ten times the number killed before the famous “Mission Accomplished” Photo Oportunity. (If we included the more than 170 mercenaries and civilian contractors hired by the US, that figure would have been passed long ago.)

In the meantime, George W. Bush viewed the firing of four CBS employees by stating: \ “CBS said they would act. They did. And I hope their actions are such that this doesn’t happen again.”\ These are the people being held responsible for improper research and care regarding the stories about the supposedly false documents regarding his ANG experience.

No weapons of mass destruction; no ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq before the invasion; our security lessened, not improved, by our involvement in Iraq; nearly 1500 dead american soldiers; estimates as high as 100,000 Iraqi’s dead from the war; these are damning facts.

Given his approval of firing four journalists for failing to research a bad story, I wonder if he will hold his administration to the same standards for far more egregious failures to adequately research. My nominations for the four to go would be Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and ‘W’ himself. George Tenet might have made the list, but he’s already gracefully retired, with a Presidential Medal of Freedom to help him remember his role.