Salon.com | The long march of Dick Cheney:

“Within the White House, the office of the vice president is the strategic center. The National Security Council has been demoted to enabler and implementer. Systems of off-line operations have been laid to evade professional analysis and a responsible chain of command. Those who attempt to fulfill their duties in the old ways have been humiliated when necessary, fired, retired early or shunted aside. In their place, acolytes and careerists indistinguishable from true believers in their eagerness have been elevated.

Former Sen. Bob Graham has revealed, in a Nov. 20 article in the Washington Post, that the condensed version of the National Intelligence Estimate titled ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs’ that was submitted to the Senate days before it voted on the Iraq war resolution ‘represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed [WMD], avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version.’ The condensed version also contained the falsehood that Saddam Hussein was seeking ‘weapons-grade fissile material from abroad.'”

Really, really scary stuff. This is definitely worth the read. The article goes into much more detail about the actions of our “government” within our elected government.

(Via Salon.)