Richard Perle and the Case of the Appalling Incompetence

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Richard Perle blames the lies he used in arguing for the invasion of Iraq on the “appalling incompetence” of the CIA, although we all know that he considered the CIA a bunch of limp-wristed pacifists and got his intel straight from Achmad Chalabi. He also said, “There is reason to believe that we were sucked into an ill-conceived initial attack aimed at Saddam himself by double agents planted by the regime.” What? WHAT?? Is he really claiming Saddam was behind our invasion of Iraq? There doesn’t seem to be a transcript anywhere, so I can’t put the quote into better context than the Post did (and no other news source in Lexis-Nexis or news.google has this). One could in theory listen to the hearings here but we’re talking 3½ hours.