Let's stipulate that we don't know precisely how much quality evidence is behind the report. However the intelligence agencies also gave us the "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" guff to justify an invasion, so their bona fides are suspect.

To give the mirrorshade brigade their due, they actually did leak that the Iraq story was made up out of whole cloth. The press just didn't want to hear it.

I think Iran's alleged atom bomb is a better analogy: It's not out of character for any of the players involved, nor beyond their technical capabilities. But a lot of people have looked very hard for evidence that it actually exists, and found nothing at all beyond the paranoid ravings of notorious conspiracy theorists.

So while it's not at the same level of lunacy as Nessie or the little gray aliens at Roswell, it's certainly less plausible than grassy knoll theory off the Kennedy assassination.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.