Iraq war links

I've had this dreadful feeling, the last few years, that my country's government will always take the sleazy option, whether it's about pension plans, secret trials, or setting nets on dolphins. So nobody believes Bush when he says "Iraq is hiding WMD, just trust me", and I never expected the government to expend some of its intelligence data to make a respectable public case. But for once I think they took the high road. Powell's speech laid out a lot more than I ever expected, and he was tolerably explicit about what (like the al Qaeda link) was speculative. The NYT transcript (warning: many painful transcriptos like "elicit weapons") and one analysis -- can anyone suggest a more skeptical analysis?

I'm not prepared to make a moral case for the war, or even a realpolitikal case from the U.S. point of view. (The gov't had better be doing a damn sight more than it's letting on about 1) actual terrorist groups and 2) North Korea, which is what we should be seriously worried about.) But if I were the U.N., and I wanted the U.N. to have any value, I would be convinced to issue an ultimatum to Iraq.

On the other hand, links like this make me wonder what earthly good for me as a citizen to worry my head about these things, when I'm drowning in idiots. So you don't have to clicky-click through the Salon ad,

Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.