Recently, my ladyfriend had the sad experience of running into an unrepentant Bushie who assailed her with these words: "I bet you even still think there were no WMDs in Iraq?" All day long, I've been mulling over how to respond to that one. How can one mount a rational argument when speaking with someone who accepts only those "facts" which buttress a preferred belief?

In today's Washington Post, we learn that the Defense Department has released a report by Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble -- a report which demonstrates that there were no operational pre-war ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

Cheney's words reached millions who never will read either the Gimble report or the Post. Here's the part Cheney left out:

Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.

Here's the part the Post leaves out: Before the invasion, Zarqawi operated out of territory controlled by the United States' Kurdish allies. Let's not even get into the oft-heard speculation that Zarqawi was a scarecrow erected by American interests. (I've yet to hear from anyone who can explain how Z-man was able to conduct maneuvers in the Iraqi desert -- during the day, under a clear sky -- without discovery by satellites and unmanned drones.)

Larisa Alexandrovna quotes this Bloomberg analysis of the Gimbel report:

Gimble told the committee that the actions of Feith and his subordinates were authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Levin, in a statement today, said the analysis from Feith's office "was not supported by available intelligence and was contrary to the consensus view of the intelligence community" yet was "used by the administration to support its public arguments in its case for war."

Feith was not misleading Cheney and Rumsfeld; he was feeding the Office of the Vice President what it wanted to hear. As Larisa notes, Feith's function was to allow Cheney to point to an outside source of information -- even though that "outside source" was an actor reading a script.

Historians, I think, will one day embrace her catalog of who did what:

The list of candidates of the likely pre-war intelligence fabricators, for me anyway, is short.

From a go-between angle -- people who likely served as a go-between to either Italian intelligence and OVP, or between the OVP and the DIA, on the project:

Herald Rhode, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin, Eleana Benador, Abram Shulsky, Ahmed Chalabi, and a few others, including some more than willing journalists.

From a lower-level managerial angle -- people who likely oversaw each smaller element of the project:

John Bolton, Doug Feith, Dov Zakheim, Peter Rodman, William Luti and a few others.

From a high-level managerial angle -- people who likely oversaw large parts or most if not all of the project:

Elliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, and a few others

Above them, directing the theatricals, were Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and Wolfowitz.

Real conspiracies do exist, but they are not vast. A world-changing plot requires few participants, if they hold the right positions.