President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.
This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.
Folks at the Center for Public Integrity must have coffee umbilicals stretching over to the Library of Congress.
They certainly have the stubbornness and smarts needed to work their way through the stonewalls of official Washington.
#60 – Nixon, Reagan, Bush==how had can the repugs get?
I often said that G W Bush answered the question of “what would have happened if Bush Sr had died and Dan Quayle had been sworn in.?”
But I was wrong, because GW is just clueless, ignorant, and dumb… He’s also evil. And I just don’t think Dan Quayle was anything more than well intentioned but grossly incompetent.
#60
As soon as you prove that statemetns A, B, C, D, and E were made with full knowledge that there were patently false, then you might have a point. Until then…
Who said anything about standing up for Bush? You are calling person X a liar by claiming they made statements which only later proved to be untrue. Our personal opinions of Bush have nothing to do with that claim. I think that Bush has made many decisions with which I disagree but that is a far cry from saying he lied about WMDs in Iraq.
#61
You should do a little research yourself into how intelligence gets processed. It is almost never the case that the intelligence information points to one and only conclusion. Almost never. The intelligence agencies never came out and said “We are absolutely positive that Hussein (does)/(does not) have WMDs and/or WMDs development programs.” Never. It would have come out as one guy saying “Our intelligence suggests that he still (has)/(does not have) a stockpile of WMDs and a program to develop nuclear weapons.”. In addition, we had almost no operatives in Iraq at the time. So any conclusion for or against would be met with skepticism unless it was combined with further intelligence from other countries which it was.
It is *always* that case that the pieces have to be fitted together and then someone makes the call based on that evaluation. At the time, the vast majority of intelligence agencies in countries around the world accepted that Hussein had WMDs (chemical and/or biological) and had a nuclear weapons program. His own generals believed it. His administration’s resistance to cooperating with the weapon’s inspectors, combined with the intelligence that had been gathered, made it appear he was hiding WMD weapon’s programs. So, to say that Bush absolutely “knew” that Hussein did not have WMDs or a nuclear program is ridiculous and is the height of revisionist history.
Furthermore, whether Bush might have had a preconceived agenda only matters if the evidence for a WMD program was completely nonexistent. Instead, given Hussein’s track record of compliance with UN sanctions, his refusal to fully cooperate with weapons inspectors and the intelligence gathered at the time by multiple countries, it appeared to substantiate the claim that Hussein was a threat.
#63 – You should do a little research yourself into how intelligence gets processed.
One can always benefit from additional research. In this case, however, I am not in the dark.
By the way… I wrote “Then try reading” in my post… and after posting, I think it came off as smug and insulting. Had I thought about it before hitting submit, I would have erased it. You didn’t say anything that deserved being talked to that way and I’d like to apologize, whether you were offended or not. I’m quick to flame, and in this case, too quick. Sorry about that.
In my weak defense, flaming is fun 🙂
Anyway,
And let’s not forget that building so-called WMDs isn’t sort of thing you do in a garage. Iraq is smaller than Texas and this is a nation that has been under close scrutiny by many nations. Hussein, who we set up in power and did happy business with for years, completely aware of his sad human rights record, may well have tried to set up and execute the production of “WMDs”. In fact, he did… but he sucked at it, and what he was trying to make could barely be called Weapons Of Moderate Destruction or maybe Massive Disarray.
It isn’t as if we were fighting Ming The Merciless from his secret Martian Base. This is Saddam Hussein, less shrewd military mastermind and more tinpot thug/crimeboss. Iraq was only shrouded in very limited mystery. Out intel community was very clearly saying not to go in there, including former CIA Director George Sr., who like all former Presidents, still gets intel. But GW’s puppetmasters had been itchin’ for this fight for too long to let facts stand in the way.
They used 9/11 as the convenient launchpad for a vanity war designed to fill corporate coffers, and ignored real threats in the region, and lost us the respect of the world.
That this sham of a President hasn’t been impeached amazes me.
RE: Flame-like response.
I did not take it that way. I understand how these discussions get heated and I’ll be the first to admit I am not one to cast judgment on smug and insulting responses. It is something I among others should work towards eliminating. Therefore, I reciprocate your apology with one of my own for my response.
RE: WMDs
> And let’s not forget that building
> so-called WMDs isn’t sort of thing you
> do in a garage
Actually, it *is*. Chemical weapons can be made at very little expense in somewhat pedestrian facilities. That is one of their traits that make them so scary. For example, the sarin gas used on the Japanese subways in mid-1990s were made in makeshift facilities.
Hussein was more successful at making WMDs than you might think. He used quite a few chemical weapons against the Kurds in the early 1990s after we left from Desert Storm. The real question on which the intelligence communities failed were the size and location of the chemical weapon stockpiles as of 2003. We now know that he used much of his arsenal in that Kurdish gassing and did not replenish them at nearly the rate (or at all) he had prior to Desert Storm. In addition, his nuclear program was a complete sham to both the outside world and his own military.
We have to be clear on the message being sent by the intelligence communities to the Bush Administration. The intelligence communities agreed that there was sufficient evidence to establish that Hussein had WMDs. However, they were also saying that the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 were in Afghanistan not Iraq. In other words, if we want to go after the people that perpetrated the crime, we should focus on Afghanistan not Iraq. The Bush Administration focused on Iraq as part of a greater strategy to get the middle-east under control. The idea was to take out Hussein, who was a threat of either doing something himself or supplying terrorists with weapons. By doing so, it would enable us to put pressure on the other countries in the area to do the same. In addition, they felt that if they could make Iraq into a stable democracy it might push existing resistance elements in Iran to overthrow the Iranian government. It is in this last regard that the Bush Administration has erred. Iraq has yet to become a democracy and may never become one and it does not appear there is enough traction in Iran to cause anywhere near a revolution. If anything, it has galvanized existing elements in Iran hungry for control of Iraq.
So, again I see no evidence that Bush “lied” about WMDs. With the information at the time, it was felt by most of the world that Hussein *did* have WMDs. We can talk all day about whether the threat from Iraq was truly imminent or whether it was strategically sound or whether violations of the sanctions warranted invasion and so on but that is not at all the same as saying he intentionally told a falsehood to the public about Iraq having WMDs.
Language is a powerful thing. It can highly enfluence how we think to the end of what we think.
When I saw the term Weapons of Mass Destruction first being used, I knew we were in for high times from the propaganda ministers. What the world is concerned about is loose nukes. When loose nukes get defined as WMD along with standard missles and chemical weapons, you just know that war will come in response to itching powder because of the fear of nukes.
And thats just what happened. Watch for it again and how sloppy WMD is used. And watch for that next change in the language. It always indicates the next round of lies.
#65, Thomas,
Once again the right wing spews and expects others to believe it.
Hussein was more successful at making WMDs than you might think.
Not exactly true. He was shown how to make chemical weapons by the CIA through Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld back in the early ’80s. It has been postulated that the CIA even either supplied the precursor chemicals or supplied the final products, but is unproven.
He used quite a few chemical weapons against the Kurds in the early 1990s after we left from Desert Storm.
False. Iraq agreed to stand down and dispose of all WMDs after Desert Storm. Inspectors were there. Also, the Kurds had a considerable degree of autonomy in the north and were protected by Allied flights. The anti-Saddam forces in the south didn’t and their uprising was put down quite cruelly. But without chemical weapons.
The real question on which the intelligence communities failed were the size and location of the chemical weapon stockpiles as of 2003
Wrong again. The intelligence communities knew that Iraq did not have any WMDs left. When the CIA claimed publicly that they did, the other intelligence agencies started going over what they knew with what was being presented. Russia and France denied that Iraq had any WMDs. Germany later followed suit. Inside the American intelligence communities, it was well known that there were none.
Several well placed people from the start said there were no WMDs. Including UN Inspection and CIA operative Scott Ritter who knew from 1998 that there were no WMDs left. ElBaradie, head of the International Atomic Energy Commission said Iraq had no atomic program in 2003. Hans Blix, head of the UN WMD Inspection team not only said there were no WMDs, but that the American and British governments were only claiming they existed as an excuse to invade Iraq.
The intelligence communities agreed that there was sufficient evidence to establish that Hussein had WMDs.
False. That was questioned by many people within the CIA and totally debunked by foreign agencies. The only ones that accepted that line were the Cheney operatives inside the CIA.
The Bush Administration focused on Iraq as part of a greater strategy to get the middle-east under control.
Wrong. Iraq was already under control. Korea and Iran were not and were considered a much graver threat. The only reason to invade Iraq was because Korea and Iran were much stronger and would not be conquered as easily. Libya and Syria were quiet and not hurting anyone. Bush wanted a feather in his cap and an easy military victory was one way to do it.
So, again I see no evidence that Bush “lied” about WMDs.
Simply because you are so full of shit you can’t understand the truth. You have been brainwashed into believing the right wing nut garbage you don’t know what really happened.