How did the U.S. end up in the growing Iraq quagmire [3]? "One theory is that the neocons, like many in power before them, tend to believe their own propaganda .... The degree to which they helped twist the intelligence about Iraq has become increasingly clear over the past few weeks, as angry intelligence professionals have taken their complaints to the press," journalist Jim Lobe writes. "But hints of a second, not unrelated reason may be found in recent, plain-speaking comments on the enormous budget deficits the administration is running up, even as it continues its drive to cut taxes. 'The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum,' declared a Financial Times editorial last month. The sentiment was seconded by Harvard [sic] economist Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. Krugman, like the Financial Times, argues that the administration ideologues are deliberately creating a fiscal crisis in order to achieve their goal of dismantling a social and economic system that ensured domestic tranquility since the New Deal."