Possibly, but they also reported Saddam's WMD as being verified when he didn't have any.
Now for something completely different. This article in Foreign Affairs Putin’s Roulette (sorry it's paywalled) argues that the military failures in Ukraine and Putin's conscription are beginning to turn his heartland supporters against him. These are the people who can't get away and / or who don't have the money and / or the resources to leave the country.
"President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization has already been colloquially dubbed the mogilizatsia, a wordplay on mobilizatsia, the Russian word for “mobilization,” and mogila, the word for “grave.” What is more, in practice, this move-to-the-graveyard is proving to be far from partial. Despite assurances by Putin and his defense minister that the draft would be limited to 300,000 people, primarily military reservists who had already served in the army and in conflict zones, Russians have already witnessed the forced conscription of men of all ages across the country. The mobilization has turned out to be almost general.
Even the most committed supporters of Putin and the regime can see that the Kremlin is aiming at a much higher figure: likely more than a million men, although Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has denied that. Such a figure would effectively double the size of the existing army, meaning that a total of two million people would be in uniform. (Although uniforms, like medicines, have become difficult to acquire: those who are mobilized are forced to buy their own uniforms and outfit themselves with first-aid kits.) Much depends, of course, on the administrative zeal of the authorities running regional recruitment offices, which, in many regions, are targeting all male citizens regardless of age or military rank or experience."
So you get conscripted and you are then forced to buy your own uniform and medical first aid kit. That's a good beginning, makes for happy troops willing to go and inflict death and destruction upon the heathen enemy for the glorious leader, dying a heroic, glorious death in the process that will be spoken about down through the ages, and oh - bound to raise morale.
"Rather than the democrats or liberals in Russia’s large cities, it is ordinary Russians who see the ruthless hunt for military recruits as a violation of their rights. More important, it is a violation of the unwritten agreement they have long had with Putin’s regime, the agreement that says that average Russian citizens won’t interfere with the Kremlin’s thieving and military adventurism as long as the Kremlin stays out of their private lives and out of their apartments, allowing them to earn a living for themselves. Military service in the name of unclear goals—and the forced exit from cozy indifference that has come with it—was definitely not in the contract. A new joke in the genre of very black humor has emerged on this subject: in the battle between the refrigerator (consumer needs) and the television (government propaganda), the television has won. But now the TV will have to fight a new battle with a different kind of refrigerator—the kind in which dead bodies are stored." (Emphasis mine).
Crossing that line may prove to be a fatal mistake for Putin because the people will only put up with so much rubbish. This is not WW2 where Russia was attacked by a merciless foreign invader and the people were more than willing to make huge sacrifices for their motherland (and did). This is Putin's war, started by him and he's stuffed it up. It doesn't matter whether his Generals were good or bad, the ultimate responsibility is his.
"The political elites who launched and supported the war won’t be found in the trenches. Dictatorial self-interest is also apparent in the mechanics of who can be exempted from the draft: the authorities are calling up people with professions needed by the economy and society—people such as pilots, the owners of small and medium-sized businesses that provide vital parallel imports of consumer goods, and school teachers. But they are not calling up the professional purveyors of propaganda, for instance, whom the Communications Ministry has exempted. It is irrational and unjust. In the race to evade the draft and avoid fighting in the regime’s war, those who are closest to the regime are winning."
I remember reading something the other day that Dimitri Peskov's son was able to avoid conscription because of who he is. Later his father confirmed that the son would not be joining the army. IIRC Josef Stalin's two sons fought against the Germans during WW2. The older of the two was taken POW by the Germans and used as a hostage by them. Stalin refused to entertain a prisoner swap and the son later died in a POW camp. Other Soviet leaders and allied leaders had close relatives on the frontlines during WW2.
"Conditioned over decades to remain inert, public opinion in Russia tends to change very slowly, as the small slides in Putin’s ratings show. Undoubtedly, the majority of the population—the 50 percent who remain firmly in favor of the war—will support everything the regime does, perhaps up to and including nuclear strikes. This is the hyper-obedient section of the population. But for another 30 percent, those who—until now—have simply found it easier to support rather than oppose the regime, Putin’s actions could have much more far-reaching consequences. These Russians are filled with doubt and dissatisfaction; for them, it is already clear that the mobilization isn’t partial, and if this impression begins to spread more widely, then the general attitude of Russian society at large could begin to shift. ...
For now, Putin has decided to swiftly set his losses in stone, declaring them acquisitions and achievements. That appears to be the logic behind the inordinate haste to hold referendums in eastern Ukraine: a victory of some sort has to be declared. The referendums are another hurried, bitter response from Putin behind which, as with all his decisions in recent years, there is ever less rationale and ever more palpably powerful emotions. The intention was immediately apparent, however, because no one among the Russian authorities feels any shame any more: following the referendums, which have no legal basis and whose results cannot be verified, the occupied territories will be regarded as Russian. At that point, any Ukrainian counterattack on those territories can be regarded as an attack on Russia itself.
This could lead to a range of consequences, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons. Talk of the use of Russia’s nuclear capability has become so casual and so frequent that it has almost become the new normal in the Kremlin’s discourse and in the narrative being put forward on its propaganda shows. Putin’s dark threats of using “all the means at our disposal,” apparently aimed at stirring up the population and girding them for battle, may at some point have the opposite effect: Is it wise to trust a leader who is dragging the nation into a nuclear winter? Russians may start fearing a nuclear war more than they fear Putin himself. Few people want to live inside an open-ended Cuban Missile crisis."
There we have it. The author's premise appears to be that Putin is gambling his and Russia's future, and that the Russian people will not turn against him. He say Putin appears to believe that he can sufficiently oppress them enough to forestall any mass opposition. The real problem is that Putin has broken the unwritten agreement and the people are unhappy about it. The question though is there enough anger and resentment present within the population to force a change of government? At present I believe that there are to many unknowns and one of the biggest would be which side the military would take. The author talks about Russia moving from autocracy to democracy but I wonder if democracy is the right form of government for Russia.
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