It may not surprise you to learn that in the time of Bush, the Pentagon hired a crackpot to provide deep insights into al Qaeda. Said crackpot, Laurie Mylroie “was paid roughly $75,000 to produce a 300-page study, “The History of Al Qaida,” for the Defense Department think tank, known as the Office of Net Assessment”.

But this is no garden variety crackpot we’re talking about here. Mylroie is famous primarily for her dogged adherence to the theory that Saddam Hussein was behind practically everything that al Qaeda did, including the 9/11 attacks. But that’s not the extent of her crackpottery. No, the high point of her crackpottery is the firm conviction that Saddam Hussein was also behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Thanks to such profound insights, Mylroie commanded great respect in the Bush administration:

Mylroie’s allies in the Bush Administration included Iraq hawks Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and others. “The elaborate conspiracy theories she had propounded–dismissed as bizarre and implausible by the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities–would have enormous influence within the administration,” reported David Corn and Michael Isikoff in their book Hubris.

Such were the foundations of the administration’s case for invading Iraq.