Hitchens gets the Libya story wrong, offering us the White House version instead of the truth.

Ghadaffi wanted to come in out of the cold, primarly looking to improve the sorry state of the economy. Clinton and Blair saw little upside for themselves, so progress was very slow.

But then Bush invaded Iraq and couldn't find any WMD. He needed an example of how his reckless plans had improved security, and Ghadaffi thought he could supply one. So he gave up his valueless nuclear program and got what he wanted, Hitchens and the war party got what they wanted, and the rest of us got lied to - again.

Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes gives us many reasons to consider trashing the CIA. His analysis is a little more informed. The first problem is that an intelligence agency got overburdened with a clandestine operations agency. The second is that presidents can't resist using the CIA black ops to get around the law, and tend to demand analysis made to order. Then there was the creeping influence of the managerialists, who decided to reward people for the number rather than the value of recruits.

Hitchens is just ticked off because the report undercuts his narrative.Understandable. But let's stick to the facts, ok?