Here’s the recipe: a clip from a conference speech, some photos of politicians, and a message about culpability for an unpopular war.

The result: a new video on YouTube.

The American administration has done some dumb things, along which invading Iraq stands tall. Although the President declared “Mission accomplished” soon afterwards, it’s fair to say there are still a few sceptics on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the US Government’s plans to win people over was to release onto teh internets a host of Iraqi documents that predated the invasion. They hoped that the internet people would help to translate these and would come across something incriminating that would retrospectively prove their war justified.

Unfortunately, according to the New York Times, in their haste, they managed to put online information on how to build an atomic bomb.

The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the Web site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.

Good work, guys. The West is saved once again. (Via dKos.)

Gavin reports John Kerry’s Monday faux pas. The US senator was trying to make a cheap gag at the expense of President Bush, but mangled his words and ended up sounding like he was criticisng the intellect of the troops in Iraq rather than the idiot who sent them there. The Republicans, of course, seized on this, accusing the Vietnam veteran of not respecting those serving. Kerry is having none of it. Here’s his marvellously robust response in full:

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

“I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

“The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

“Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”

I know I’ve already mentioned this once, but Ming’s demonstrated his U-turn again on Question Time last night.

He now says that setting an absolutely deadline (and I’m not sure either Simon or Chris demanded an absolute, no-going-back, final date) for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq would be irresponsible. He also says we should stick around and help rebuild the country. But just one year ago, he co-wrote this:

Moreover, the longer we remain in Iraq the more our occupation becomes part of the problem for the security situation rather than the solution. The heavy-handed deployment of US firepower in urban areas, against repeated British advice, has not weakened the insurgency but strengthened the ambition of most Iraqis for an end to foreign occupation.

The UN mandate expires in a year’s time with the completion of the timetable for direct election of a representative government under an agreed constitution. Both Britain and America should inform the assembly elected this weekend that we expect to leave by the end of that UN mandate. Both the assembly and the occupying forces must then each do its part to fulfil the necessary political and security tasks to meet that timetable.

That seems as sensible a position now as it was when the article was written, and Ming Campbell, Robin Cook and Douglas Hurd – two of them former foreign secretaries – were lauded at the time for writing it. It’s also the view that Chris Huhne has been espousing during this leadership election. Is Ming now saying that he, Cook and Hurd were wrong?