IN THE AFTERMATH of September 11, more than several former national security and intelligence officials fashioned new careers as critics of the Bush administration’s war on terror. Among the more prominent of these former officials is Daniel Benjamin, who worked for the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999. Benjamin’s criticism flows from his belief that prior to the war in Iraq, as he wrote in Time magazine earlier this year, “there was no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda.” Still worse, the invasion of Iraq has made us “less safe” and “above all, the invasion and occupation of Iraq–have galvanized still more Muslims and convinced them of the truth of bin Laden’s vision.”

He carried this line of attack a step further in Slate two weeks ago, arguing that Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in directing national security policy trumped that of the president’s. As evidence, he highlighted Cheney’s ties to the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (“CTEG”) and the “neoconservative(s)” who put together “bad intel” connecting Iraq and al Qaeda. “Some of CTEG’s material was leaked to THE WEEKLY STANDARD,” he warns readers, “where it was published” and “achieved some renown as a classic in the genre of cherry-picked intelligence.”