Senate Intelligence Committee's report admits to Americans what many of us have known all along.

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even nonexistent," the Committee chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said on releasing the 172-page report. "As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."

"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence," he added. "But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

"The president and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the (9/11) attacks to use the war against al-Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein," Rockefeller said. "Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises."

Being aware that I was being lied to and watching how easily my countrymen were fooled by this administration was heartrending.

There was a time when you could not even question whether the Bush administration was taking us into an unnecessary war in mixed company for fear of upsetting somebody who may have a relative in the military or who had swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. I know that I angered a few members of my family and made a few friends uncomfortable by expressing my opinion, even though I tried to minimize my anger in public.

Essentially that is why I have this blog.

But now we know that those of us who saw something fishy going on were not paranoid, we were clear minded and painfully aware of what was happening to our country.

We suffered then, but I have to wonder how much those who believed these lies are suffering now.