Curveball was not the extent of the "intel" at all, though the MSM would like one to believe that. It was one piece of second or third hand intelligence that buttressed the already-established widespread consensus (of the Western world's intelligence community). The links above provided by Dade detail this fact. The media blew this up as big as it could for ratings and to fit a partisan agenda, but there never has been any proof whatsoever Drumheller is telling the truth and Tenet is lying about what everyone knew and when. One can certainly argue that the CIA gave way more weight to this piece of intelligence than it should have under the circumstances, especially regarding Powell's testimony, but that is about all one can say. Not that the consensus opinion in any way relied on that piece or that anyone knew that piece to be fabricated at the time.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/v...ory.asp?id=555

The reason everyone believed that Saddam had WMDs is because he wanted everyone to believe he had WMDs. It is as simple as that.

He acted like he had WMDs. His generals believed he had WMDs. He had the ability to make WMDs. WMDs are valuable. For years he refused to cooperate with UN inspectors. He admitted after being captured that he behaved like he had WMDs because he was worried about looking weak to Iran.

There is no evidence whatsoever Bush "lied" about WMDs. None. Claiming so indicates that the person making the claim either a) is ignorant of the facts, or b) is ignorant of the meaning of the word "lie." One can quibble about the use of the rhetorical phrase of "no doubt" when really meaning "everyone agrees/believes," but that rhetoric is used all the time, from global warming to the affects of the stimulus to who is the best football player, and it was used by others (including Democrats) regarding Iraq WMDs.

Nor is "no new taxes" (as earlier mentioned) a "lie" because it was made as a promise (that was eventually not kept). It was not a knowingly false statement when stated/promised.

A "lie" is saying something known at that time to be untrue.