Intelligence Report

With the release of the Flood report into Australia's intelligence failures before the war in Iraq, and the release of a similar report in the UK, it is surprising how easily the respective governments have been able to distract attention away from the key question of was there ever enough evidence to actually go to war with Iraq in the first place.
It has been quite easy to show that intelligence agencies were not operating at their peek or were under funded or had internal coordination and organisational problems, but the fact is that the decision to go to war was not made by the intelligence agencies, and they seem to be now fulfilling a scape goat role for the people who were responsible actually pulling the trigger.
Yes, our intelligence agencies need to be better funded, yes like any other organisation, they need to overhaul their procedures and organisational structures when they become inefficient, but we as a democratic nation need to have leaders that will make war only as an absolute last resort. Leaders who are brave enough to stand up to the US and question their motivations and have an opinion that they don't have to seek approval from Washington to hold.