If at first you don't succeed, move the goalposts

From today's LA Times:

Having failed to find banned weapons in Iraq, the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what the deposed regime's capabilities might have looked like years from now if left unchecked, according to congressional and intelligence officials.

The CIA plans for the report, due next month, to project as far as 2008 what Iraq might have achieved in its illegal weapons programs if the United States had not invaded the country last year, the officials said.

I was planning on writing a sarcastic entry about the obvious political motivation of this effort. However, I think this fellow blogger says it best.

In further news:

- The United States Legal Commission today announced a report projecting what the United States and the world would have looked like, had the Supreme Court not awarded the Presidency to George W. Bush in the Florida election.

- The National Budget Office today announced a report projecting the total U.S. deficit and national debt -- had Mr. Bush's tax cuts not taken force and the congressional members of the GOP actually worked to reduce the size of government.

- A National Defense Space Progam taxpayer-funded study goes on to project what the Department of Defense needs might have been, had a hostile alien force from planet Kyron landed on earth fifty years ago and assumed human form. The report is being used to request additional funding for the Space Missile Defense initiative.