The missing witness from the Iraq Inquiry

Watching Blair and Straw give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry I was struck by the way they attempted to argue that at the time of the invasion no-one could have believed that Iraq didn't have weapons on mass destruction.  Cook's diaries, The Point of Departure: Diaries from the Front Bench, shed interesting lightand are well worth reading if you want to understand the decision making process of Blair's Government. However it is his resignation speech that is worth listening to - it reminds us that, after accessing the available intelligence Cook was able to tell the House of Commons that:

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

and

On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound ... they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.

American "Intelligence"

The CIA's budget is secret but informed estimates put it a massive $30 billion.

So when the agency decides to update its wanted poster for their number one target Osama Bin Laden (now aged 52) one expects some pretty impressive technology from so well funded an institution.   However it appears not.  Instead a CIA forensic artist searched google pictures for a 52 year old; found a picture of a Spanish Socialist politician of that age and then used photoshop to mix and match his features with a picture of Bin Laden aged 42. The stunning result of this technique is demonstrated below...

Gaspar Llamazares, the unfortunately 52 year old man whose picture the CIA artist found on the internet has expressed fears about his safety and decided it is unsafe to travel to the US.  A pretty smart deduction I think.

Meanwhile Bin Laden remains uncaptured despite the best endeavours of the CIA.  I wonder why?

Full story from the BBC