The lies continue unabated.

The story in the Sun Journal on Jan. 23 about the Center for Public Integrity’s enumeration of the Bush administration’s lies gives a statement from White House spokesman Scott Stanzel that the Iraq war began “… based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world.” What he can only mean, in fact, are the U.S., British and Australian intelligence agencies.

Around the world, indeed.

Not surprisingly, he fails to mention that the “intelligence” he alludes to – Iraq’s attempt to buy uranium from Niger – was known and reported to be false by the CIA four months before President Bush used it in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003.

In addition, in 2000, Scott Ritter, chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq (and former U.S. Marine intelligence officer) maintained that there were no significant WMDs left in Iraq – either chemical or biological. Nor were any subsequently found.

Greg Thielman, a retired State Department intelligence chief, gives the most cogent analysis during an interview in the documentary “Hijacking Catastrophy:”

“I believe that one of the worst things the head of a democracy can do is mislead the public about an issue of war and peace that would result in the deaths of the sons and daughters of that country, and it is in that belief and the belief that members of the administration did just that, I would be in favor of impeachment,” Thielman said.

Bruce Mitchell, Wilton