I spy approval ratings talk:

The White House has ratcheted up its war. Not the war in Iraq, but the war to defend the war - from its origins to President Bush’s determination to see the project through to conclusion.

After Tuesday’s rebuke from a bipartisan majority of senators, who proclaimed that 2006 should be a year of “significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty” and more public reports of progress, the White House has come back swinging - at its Democratic critics.

With the November 2006 congressional elections already looming large, the White House seems determined to frame the growing public unhappiness with the Iraq war as a partisan matter. On Wednesday, both Bush and Vice President Cheney slammed Democratic senators for questioning the use of prewar intelligence. Mr. Cheney accused Democratic critics of “making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war.”

But the polling data indicates that Bush’s problem is bigger than just Democrats: His job approval ratings are now solidly below 40 percent in major polls, a sign that he is nearly down to his core GOP support and has lost the independent voters. Increasingly, he appears headed for trouble with elected members of his own party, as they eye their own ‘06 prospects.

Stung over Iraq, White House takes offensive

I spy pre-war lies talk:

Five senior officials from Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with the LOS ANGELES TIMES that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball’s information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball’s claims in his pre-war presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball’s German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly second-hand and impossible to confirm.

“This was not substantial evidence,” said a senior German intelligence official. “We made clear we could not verify the things he said.”

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. “He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy,” said a BND official who supervised the case. “He is not a completely normal person,” agreed a BND analyst.

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005®