At some point between the authorization to go to war, and the act of war, was the intel in question, questioned?
I often ask myself, should the 'bad' intelligence have been verified prior to the invasion of Iraq.
The excuse of "bad" intelligence, is the worse excuse I could imagine. At some point, any prudent intelligence analyst, should have recognized, that the intel may be wrong. Once that occured, an attempt to verify, would be the course of action.
The attempt to verify was happening, UN Inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. They were chasing down the intelligence leads, and drawing blanks. The Administration clearly knew this, and in its final report, lied to the Congress and the US. (March 18, 2003)
http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/Report107_243.pdf
This one quote from the report that bothers me:
"There is no reason to believe that Iraq will disarm, and
cooperate with inspections to verify such disarmament, if
the U.S. and the UN employ only diplomacy and other peaceful
means."
Iraq was cooperating with Inspectors at the time this report was written and released.
That statement brings the Downing Street Memo back to forefront. They did not expect Iraq to cooperate, and still fell back on those expectations, long after they were proven wrong.
On March 20, 2003 the war started.......