News: Iraq, Curveball, poll data

What's happening in Iraq?
* The Iraqi parliament have elected a Sunni Arab as their speaker. Pretty cool, yes? It seems like Sunni leaders are urging cooperation: they're telling their people to join up with the Iraqi police force.
* More abuse, this time of an Iraqi general.
* Head on over to Baghdad burning for an article on American media in Iraq.
* Will we ever know who was responsible for the massive intelligence failure? Maybe not. The admnistration hasn't held anybody accountable for it, save for Tenet. You trying to tell me that one man was responsible for the WMD debacle? Two men, really: don't forget about Curveball--the crazy, alcoholic cousin of one of Chalabi's aides, according to the Guardian. Doubts were raises about Curveball as early as 2000, but "Intelligence analysts who voiced concern were 'forced to leave' the unit mainly responsible for analysing his claims." [same article] Why? Maybe because Curveball was telling the administration what it wanted to hear.

* Least surprising news ever: "Bush is a hostage to the religious right"

* Poll data: And I thought I was the only one. Our foreign policy is scaring the Aussies, most of whom believe that our foreign policy is just as big a threat as Islamic fundamentalism. Even most Americans don't think that any nation should have nuclear weapons, including us.