The Final Nail in the Coffin

The final proof that the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq was a pack of lies appears in an article by Knut Royce in the Huffington Post titled "Remembering the Hoax That Helped Launch the U.S. Invasion, and Later Disintegration, of Iraq". As Royce puts it

The forged reports alleged that Saddam Hussein had been secretly buying the raw material to build an atomic bomb, uranium ore, and became George W. Bush's most compelling selling point for the invasion some eleven years ago. Many intelligence officials and members of his administration at the time suspected that, at the very least, the intelligence was questionable.

And as we all remember Condi Rice was running around scaring everybody with visions of mushroom clouds. The thing is that the documents, known as the "Italian letter," were bogus. As Royce puts it

The documents were crafted by rogue Italian intelligence officers who wanted to peddle them to unsuspecting countries, including Britain and the U.S. -- or anyone else with cash. The centerpiece, or The Italian Letter, was a July 27, 2000, letter purportedly written to Saddam by the president of Niger, an impoverished African country. It allegedly formalized an agreement reached by representatives of both countries three weeks earlier for the supply of 500 tons of uranium ore, also known as yellow cake. The Italian intelligence service, SISMI, first alerted the CIA to the alleged transaction on Oct. 15, 2001, when America was still reeling from al Qaeda's attacks. But it gave no details, such as the tonnage being purchased, and provided no documentation.

Ultimately, the Bush admin. wasn't relying on facts but on fear and hysteria. And the rest is history.