QUOTE: A good point in the latest by The Hitch:
"(German intelligence reported to Gerhard Schröder that Saddam was within measurable distance of getting a nuke: That didn't deter the chancellor in the least from adopting an utterly complacent approach.)"
So presumably Bush was somehow supposed to know that the information given to him was false, even though the CIA and whomever else swore up and down by it (or equivocated on it in a reasonably consistent pattern over time). But let's say that you knew what Gerhard Schroder new, and what's more, you had your intelligence agencies swearing up and down (or at least equivocating in a reasonably consistent pattern over time) that Saddam was going to use it on (pick your helpless group: Kurds, Israelis, Palestinians). What do you do then?
I think the key to moral and political seriousness, here as everywhere, lies in getting the extreme cases right.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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