There is a growing call for an investigation into the “intelligence” failures that led everyone to believe that Hussein had WMD, with now even Republicans calling for an investigation. That’s pretty significant, for the GOP to be in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress, and agree to investigate–quite a statement about how serious this is becoming.

David Kay calls the failures completely the fault of the intelligence community, and that is where the focus is right now. But is that really where the fault lay? Could there have been such gross incompetence? Kind of hard to believe it could have really been that bad. Or was there supposed to be an intentional campaign of misinformation? What did the entire intelligence community have to gain by that?

I am still sticking to my guns on the concept that everyone knows but no one is mentioning–the elephant in the middle of the room–that this was a case of moderate intelligence failure which was greatly exacerbated by a White House intent on invading Iraq and so pressing the intelligence community for intel that matched their agenda–even abandoning that community when it did not give good enough product. I believe there was pressure to exaggerate, I believe there was sexing up, and I believe that there was a highly selective presentation of that information. And what we see now is the intelligence community falling on its sword. The question will be how far the community is willing to fall on that sword, and whether they may crack under the strain of a Congressional investigation.

But for now, it looks like the investigation may take place, which is certain to upset the Bush administration, which was in the process of so carefully planning military and diplomatic operations so they would all line up so nicely with the election.

There’s a NASA press conference going as of this writing, and these guys are proving to have a lot more interesting things to say than the dry scientific delivery you might expect. All of them are giddy, of course, now that both Spirit and Opportunity rovers seem to be doing very well.

One small glitch in video playback showed an animation of the rover driving off the lander and stopping in mid-animation–three times–while the scientist commenting said to the effect of, “that’s exactly how the rover rolled off the lander, except for the part where it didn’t drive off the lander.” Later, a graphic was shown of where the lander would be, and the commentator said, “that would be where we ended up in the animation!” The full shot, however, was shown after the conference ended.

When another scientist tried to announce calmly that hematite (a mineral which forms in water) had been confirmed on Mars, the whole auditorium broke out in applause and a bottle of champagne was handed over to the scientist, who obligingly unwrapped the cork while calmly noting that “this is the third time I’ve been drinking today,” before explaining the highly technical “squiggly line” that proved the hematite. All in all, pretty amusing stuff, and great to see people in such good spirits.

By the way, NASA events are televised on NASA TV, which requires the Real Media Player. If CNN stops coverage, you can pick it up there.