For the first article, I am not really sure what the debate is. It's pretty obvious that the government lied and mislead people about the situation in Iraq for some personal agenda whatever that may be. And of course it's easy to say that now after 5 years and still no weapons found but these excerpts came from 2003, which makes it even more painfully obvious we were mislead.

But I guess this is proof that deception does work for awhile. By creating an illusion of danger, the Bush Administration created a "rally around the flag" affect which got people to support the cause, as only a few senators voted against the war when it was first initiated. However, this also shows the danger of misleading because it's pretty easy to argue how the lies that got us into Iraq severely hurt the support for the Bush Administration and even the Republican party. No one likes to be deceived especially for what appears to be someonelse's agenda.

As for Clarke's interview, I think it showed much how the rules of the political game prevent the truth from coming out. The idea that you can't criticize the president when you work for him is something that I think a lot of people would understand and something that McNamara mentioned in his documentary. However what came to light in my mind was the irony of how these officials are supposed to represent us the people and uphold our ideals but it gets so twisted with the ideas of loyalty to their higher officials and their party. Even if the failures of the Bush's Administrations on terror were clearly going to be harmful to the American people who elected them, politics prevented that from coming out. And I think that this is further proof of the so called "diseased system" we keep discussing.