I for one am encouraged by the recent public realisation that the intelligence-gathering skills of the two most powerful nations are of such doubtful credence.
I am, of course, assuming that no matter what intelligence was relayed to the heads of the two governments, it would have been used to justify the invasion of Iraq they had already decided upon.
But I am now well-equipped, in that small-minded, self-interested way in which we journalists sometimes work, to deal with my editor next time she upbraids me for some trifling error in my copy.
So what if his remuneration was only R20 million a month and I said it was R200 million? I'm only out by one zero.
I take my editorial direction on these matters from no less an authority than CIA chief George Tenet, who stated just the other day: "In the intelligence business, you are almost never completely wrong or completely right."
Surely if that attitude is acceptable in waging war, then it's okay if you're writing about nothing more important than a company's price:earnings ratio or an executive's remuneration.
In the UK - after an appalling whitewash that makes health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's grasp of 21st century medicine seem scientific - the initial public response to the conclusions of the Hutton report would have led one to believe BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan had led the charge into Iraq. More recently, of course, Prime Minister Tony Blair has indicated that the intelligence he relied upon in his efforts to get support for the invasion of Iraq was flawed.
And so now we have two inquiries: one in the UK that is replete with individuals who seem certain to ladle on yet more whitewash; and the second in the US that includes individuals of a more vigorous disposition but with a deadline of March next year - by which time its findings will certainly have lost much of their urgency, and if there are any other terrorist attacks on US soil in the interim they might even cease to be relevant.
Ironically, in this intelligence debacle the only individuals who lost their jobs were in the media - Gilligan, two top BBC executives and Blair's director of communications, Alistair Campbell.
This highlights not only the precarious nature of employment in the media - where we risk everything to bring you, the reader, intelligence of one sort or another - but also a most bizarre sense of responsibility at the top levels of government.
Thousands of people have been killed and tens of billions of dollars spent on a war that was not justified, and no official has lost his job. Not even an apology in small print at the bottom of page two - just commissions of inquiry.
The really scary thing is that if these hugely well-resourced intelligence-gathering agencies have proven to be off-track this time, shouldn't we presume it has happened before?
Certainly there have been enough so-called IRA terrorist suspects thrown into UK jails over the years to suspect that the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is not the first time British intelligence or its users got it wrong.
Apart from the opportunity it presents to deflect criticism from my own comparatively modest mistakes, the encouraging aspect of this whole sorry state is that we will all be much more cynical of actions based on intelligence that has been gathered for individuals with suspect agendas.
It seems that the 21st century has not been kind to the icons of old. Perhaps it is appropriate that in a period dubbed the Information Age, highly regarded purveyors of information have featured at the top of the casualty list.
Even the media sector, which was never very highly regarded, has received a thrashing.
Arthur Andersen didn't get a chance to convene a commission of inquiry - it just disappeared.
Deloitte's and Grant Thornton will have to do something imaginative to rescue their reputations from the Parmalat mess.
Wherever you look there are large banks, audit firms and corporate executives trying to survive appalling lapses of intelligence, judgment and integrity.
And while not on the same scale as the scandals that have plagued corporate America, here at home there are sufficient reasons for a cynical attitude to corporate intelligence.
The results of the work of the Generally Accepted Accounting Practice monitoring panel indicate that some auditors continue to have the same attitude to accounting policies that Humpty Dumpty had towards words in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'."
Of course, it is almost impossible for parties who are not involved in compiling a set of accounts to know if the figures behind the policies are accurate.
For this we still have to rely on the integrity of the intelligence gatherers or the courage of whistle-blowers.
So it is incumbent upon us all to question everything - especially everything that emanates from powerful interest groups.