Today, I asked both Press Secretary Scott McClellan and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley about recent reports that the Italian government was involved in the Iraq-Niger hoax.

The Bush administration, and Republicans in gerneral have made national security their defining theme since 911, but as is so often the case, the record belies the rhetoric. On almost every front — foreign policy, the military, intelligence, even security related domestic issues such as the deficit — the administration have made the country less secure, not more.

62 Congressional representatives, led by Democrat Lynn Woolsey, have sent a letter to president Bush outlining a four-point therapeutic intervention for the administration’s dysfunctional Iraq policy. The group includes one Republican, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

The invasion of Iraq and the consequent damage done to our military, primarily the Army and Army National Guard, raises a fundamental question that no one seems to be addressing, at least not publicly and in detail: what is the Army for? What are its fundamental purposes, and how do we configure it to meet those purposes, and how do we refrain from commiting it to purposes for which it isn’t suited and that are ultimately corrosive?

Most Americans think Dick Cheney is up to his ears in the Plame leak and that he lied about intelligence on Iraq prior to the invasion in order to mislead the country into supporting the war. 52% of Americans think Cheney “was part of a cover-up to try to prevent the special prosecutor from getting to the truth about who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name to the news media,” according to a Newsweek poll conducted on November 10-11. Only 27% think Cheney wasn’t part of a coverup; 21% are unsure. More than one in five Republicans (23%) think Cheney is involved.

The White House sent out a press release Sunday entitled “Setting the Record Straight” to address accusations that the administration distorted and cherry-picked intelligence in service of selling the Iraq war. The document begins by noting that the Robb-Silverman commission report concluded that the administration didn’t pressure intelligence agencies and analysts to tell the president and others what they wanted to hear, and ends, curiously, with a quote from the UK’s Butler Committee report on Tony Blair’s use of intelligence. That’s right: They’re resorting to the Blair Fallback, in which even if you don’t trust Bush, you can’t help but trust Tony Blair, who is articulate and has that delightfully authoritative public school accent.

Christopher Hitchens has a frenetic, spleenful three-highball column in Slate debunking the myth that Ahmed Chalabi is anything but Iraq’s own combination of the Georges Washington and Smiley. All this frantic activity could be harnessed for the benefit of all mankind if we could just stick Hitch in a wheel and watch him spin.

Despite our best efforts, we can’t comment on all the news and events we run across. Following is a summary of news items covered on our “Bad Crow” sister blog during the past week.

One of the features of this case has been what one might call the Theory of Immaculate Information, in which some bit of knowledge such as the identity and working circumstances of Valerie Plame just come to be out there. Immaculate information played a role in both Karl Rove’s and Scooter Libby’s defensive leaking campaigns during the investigation, when defenders of the two men claimed that both had learned of Plame’s identity from reporters rather than the other way around. The information was sourceless; it simply existed. Other White House partisans have said much the same since the beginning of the investigation more than two years ago.

Dear Mr. Calame:

You may already have received complaints regarding the November 13 story by Bill Broad and David Sanger, “Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims.” If so, I apologize for adding to them.

David Albright, the former UN weapons inspector now running the Insitute for Science and Security, says the story contains what he characterizes as “a deep and misleading flaw.” After reading the story, Albright’s initial criticism of it in a letter to the editor, and the correspondence between Albright and both Bill Broad and his editor, Matt Purdy, I have to agree: the story really is flawed and should warrant a correction. And given the seriousness of the issue, whether the US has proof Iran is working on a nuclear warhead design, and the newspaper’s previous editorial and reportorial experience with similar stories on similar issues with Iraq, the correction should be a prominent one.

Dennis Morrisseau, a retired Vermont businessman who is running in the Republican primary for one of Vermont’s two House of Representative seats, has sent an open letter to Congress calling on the federal legislature to fulfill their Consitutional responsibilities regarding the commitment of US forces to combat. “The power and responsibility to declare war are yours alone under the Constitution and cannot be delegated,” Morrisseau tells Congress.

Former UN weapons inspector David Albright has raised questions about the accuracy of a November 13 New York Times story on US intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear program and what the Bush administration say is evidence that Iran may be attempting to develop nuclear warheads for a ballistic missile capable of striking Israel and other Middle East countries.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist is locked in a fierce battle with “None” at the bottom of a list of potential GOP candidates for president in 2008. A Diageo/Hotline poll asking Republican voters to indicate their preference among six GOP presidential hopefuls shows Frist at 3%, tied with None. None was not among the listed candidates.

If a snap election between George W. Bush and torture were held today, torture would win in a romp. As writer Bob Harris notes, recent polls show more Americans supporting the use of torture than approve of the president’s job performance. A Newsweek poll conducted November 10-11 has the president’s approval rating at 45%, while 58% of Americans would support the use of torture ” if it might lead to the prevention of a major terrorist attack.”

Among the pipe dreams behind the Bush administration’s determination to invade Iraq was the notion that the road to peace in the Middle East ran through a secular, democratic Baghdad. It doesn’t of course; as it has for the past half-century and more, it runs through the middle of Jerusalem. And for the first time in years, and despite the Bush administration’s lackadaisical approach to resolving the conflict, there exists a breath of hope that Israel might make a determined effort to revive the moribund peace process.