I got a tip about a man in Basra who had had his tongue amputated for criticizing Saddam. He had moved away, but I found a friend of his, Abdel Karim Hassan.

"A thousand thanks to Bush!" he told me. "A thousand thanks to Bush's mother for giving birth to him!"

Hmmm. I hadn't expected a tribute to the Mother of all Bushes.

Then I heard about Mathem Abid Ali and tracked him down in the southern city of Nasiriya. .... Mr. Abid Ali deserted the Iraqi Army, was caught, taken to a hospital and given general anesthesia -- and woke up with no right ear.

"Children looked at me, and turned away in horror," Mr. Abid Ali said bitterly.

So I asked Mr. Abid Ali what he thought of the Americans.

He thought for a moment and said: "I'd like to make a statue in gold of President Bush."

So, facts got in the way of my plans for this column. But sometimes that's a good thing. I do think it's important for doves like myself to encounter Saddam's victims like Mr. Abid Ali and their joy at being freed. Iraq today is a mess, but it's a complex, deeply nuanced mess, etched in shades of gray.

Hawks need to wrestle with the reckless exaggerations of intelligence that were used to mislead the American public. Instead, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared Tuesday, "I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."

Let me help. Mr. Rumsfeld, meet George Tenet, director of central intelligence, who immediately before the Congressional vote on Iraq last October issued a report asserting: "Most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." Meet Vice President Dick Cheney, who said about Saddam on March 16: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Yet at the same time that we doves hold Mr. Rumsfeld's talons to the fire, we need to grapple with the giddy new freedom that -- in spite of us -- pullulates from Baghdad to Basra. I got a warm and fuzzy feeling each time I saw an Iraqi newsstand, overflowing with vibrant newspapers and magazines that did not exist six months ago.

» CNN.com - The Man With No Ear - Jun. 27, 2003