I think that the Administration line against the CIA is ultimately going to be this:
The truth was, Iraq was in such a reduced state due to GW One and years of sanctions and Clinton-era surgical strikes that it had no WMD stocks and no real WMD programs.
But the CIA didn't figure that out. Instead, it continued to believe there may be WMD stocks and programs -- with the caution that the evidence was not clear.
This CIA mistake gave the Administration a starting point for building a case for war on exaggerations and lies. If the CIA had gotten it right, there would be no starting point and there would be nothing for the Administration to exaggerate -- therefore, the war would have been prevented.
Or to put that another way, the CIA did not try hard enough to stop the evil influence of the OSP. It's the same excuse Bush used in the Niger Connection scandal -- Tennet tried, buy did not try hard enough, to keep the NC out of the SOTU.
It's really difficult to see how the Administration can pull this off.
During the time that the invasion could have been called off, there were UN inspectors in Iraq, and they had the run of the country and were finding nothing, even after being directed to suspicious sites by the US.
So no matter what the intelligence agencies may have thought or said before inspections resumed, there was now a very strong indication that (1) our intelligence was being proven wrong and needs to be reassessed, not trusted, and (2) there were no WMDs or WMD programs in Iraq, and thus no threat.
What would a reasonable President do in that situation? Halt the inspections and unleash war, and all the hell and loss that goes with it? Or wait to see what the inspections turned up, possibly averting any need for war?
We know what choice Bush made. He belongs behind bars, he really does.