"The Vice President's Office: The Emotional and Intellectual Force Pushing the U.S. to War"

Here's the money quote from this morning's article by Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus in the Washington Post:

The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war, and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it. Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office, which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

And central to building the case for the war was Judy Miller hyping the WMD threat on the front pages of the New York Times. Their connections ran as deep as the roots of the aspen trees. For more on this, check out this morning's Kausfiles.