Iraq and Yellow Cake

Remember the furor over President Bush's claim that Iraq was seeking Uranium ore from Niger? Remember the gleeful scoffing when one of the pieces of evidence turned out to be a forgery, putting large dollops of egg on administration faces? Well, it turns out that three European intelligence services had independent evidence of the truth of the administration's assertions. The Financial Times has the story. Thanks for the tip to Power Line which closes their piece with this:

The Bush administration has known this all along. So why did it withdraw the Niger claim, rather than defending it? Who knows. It's too late now, in any event. If the administration thinks it can pull this chestnut out of the fire at this late date, it is mistaken. What Bush said was true, but the facts ceased being important long ago.

Probably true. The public has only a limited ability to absorb new information once it has decided that something has been proven. The masses, unfortunately, base their opinions on impressions rather than upon reason or facts. The impression that Bush was bamboozled by a forgery about Iraqi attempts to buy Niger yellow cake has been fixed like a stain in the public consciousness and will probably be almost impossible to eradicate, no matter how much evidence accumulates.