The headline for the James Risen piece quoted in the previous post is: "Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program."

True, the C.I.A. "missed" something, but some respect is owed to the scientists who were fighting for their lives in a "vortex of corruption," "a fevered police state," "a death spiral."

An added word: I don't mean to say the scientists weren't also components of the corruption vortex, or to imply that they were heroes, but they certainly seemed to have been quite clever, and what they did was probably less bad than what they deviously pretended they did.