Bush administration lied 935 times to get the US into Iraq

[Watser?]

Bush and his closest buddies lied 935 times on 532 separate occasions an independent group of investigative journalist has determined. The journalists juxtaposed what President Bush and seven top administration officials said in public against what was known, or should have been known, at that time. Bush himself lied 260 times, Powell 254 times, Rumsfeld 'only' 109 times. Cheney lied 48 times but the quality of the lies was impressive, this one for instance: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." A CIA official told journalist Ron Suskind: "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' " And now we know: out of his ass.
None of this is really new, but the effort of catalogueing it all is admirable.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

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.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

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.

[Dingfod]

Why again is there no impeachment going on?

[cappuccino]

Because we have a weak Congress full of liabilities unable to see beyond their political noses.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by cappuccino

Because we have a weak Congress full of liabilities unable to see beyond their political noses.

Put more simply, it's full of Democrats.

[Adam]

The link isn't working for me.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by Adam

The link isn't working for me.

No? Works for me, I dunno what to do.

Here's a chart as a consolation price

[Clutch Munny]

Sure, mistakes were made. But it was still The Right Thing To Do. And if only the media reported more fairly people would see how great it's going!

[Adam]

Yah! Where's your graph of the lies they didn't tell, you terrorist enabler? *sigh* If only the media would report all the good news.

(Btw, I'm sure my inability to see what's at the link has something to do with my work firewall, I'm just too lazy to look at my network traffic and find out. I'll try again when I get home.)

[Farren]

They didn't lie, watser, they made false statements. Whether a false statement is a lie depends on whether "is" is what you think it is - and whether you're retarded enough to believe that an administration with one of the most sophisticated intelligence apparatuses on the planet, having taken political control of that apparatus' analytical function, could have mistakenly identified the wrong country as a prime mover in a major terrorist attack when they already knew most of the terrorists and their largest bankroller were from another country.

IOW, the false statements might have been informed by poor, er, intelligence.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Why again is there no impeachment going on?

If only he'd do something truly impeachment-worthy -- like, oh, I dunno ... maybe diddle an intern or something.

[JamesBannon]

Hmmm.... I wonder how many times master Blair lied. Must be approaching that number at least I would think. Still, he's now earning $1,000,000 a year advising on Economic affairs in Iraq (apparently), so it seems to have had a handsome dividend.

[Caligulette]

I am appreciative of the breakdown and more precise number. Still, I was surprised to see it headlined on Yahoo yesterday and wondered if I had fallen into a Bizarro world where it was actually *news* that Bush and Co lied to get into Iraq. I mean, isn't this what was exposed at the beginning with the whole "yellowcake" hoohah? Isn't this what millions of people worldwide were marching about? Isn't this what Congress has been in total denial about ever since?

Haven't we had little lie exposure stories ever since which have allowed those who voted for the War Powers to say "But I didn't know?" and plead ignorance one day and then vote to continue funding the damn fiasco the next? All the while not being questioned about how they didn't know what was clearly known at the time?

Uh, huh, yes, it is.

[California Tanker]

So with all that analysis, how many of those statements did they conclude were simply inaccurate as a result of misinterpretations, how many were inaccurate as a result of a best guess, and how many were deliberate mistruths?

NTM

[Watser?]

Personally I am going to go with 935 lies and I will repeat it as much as possible like this:

The Bush administrations lied 935 times to sell the Iraq war. Bush himself lied 260 times.

I don't care if it was a deliberate lie or just stupidity (aka bad intelligence) in action.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

If only he'd do something truly impeachment-worthy -- like, oh, I dunno ... maybe diddle an intern or something.

Or, as I've heard it, "where's the tramp in the blue dress when you really need her?"

[Caligulette]

If intelligence is such that it might lead to war, it damn well better be solidly confirmed before being presented to, you know, the UN. "Oops, sorry, my bad" does not cut it when a country has been gutted.

[ZEZOZE]

i highly doubt this is a record, just recorded.

i bet the rate at which our leaders lie keeps pace with the pervasiveness of modern media...i should work up a graph for that site crumb posted.

anyhow, don't get yourselves upset. this is nothing. remember- you're winning!

long live the empire!!

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Caligulette

I am appreciative of the breakdown and more precise number. Still, I was surprised to see it headlined on Yahoo yesterday and wondered if I had fallen into a Bizarro world where it was actually *news* that Bush and Co lied to get into Iraq. I mean, isn't this what was exposed at the beginning with the whole "yellowcake" hoohah? Isn't this what millions of people worldwide were marching about? Isn't this what Congress has been in total denial about ever since?

Haven't we had little lie exposure stories ever since which have allowed those who voted for the War Powers to say "But I didn't know?" and plead ignorance one day and then vote to continue funding the damn fiasco the next? All the while not being questioned about how they didn't know what was clearly known at the time?

Uh, huh, yes, it is.

Not really:

The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.

[...]

[Farren]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

So with all that analysis, how many of those statements did they conclude were simply inaccurate as a result of misinterpretations, how many were inaccurate as a result of a best guess, and how many were deliberate mistruths?

NTM

Rhetorical question?

It would be impossible to determine that in the strict, evidentiary sense without an extraordinary amount of investigation and access to evidence that can't reasonably be expected to surface.

But from the point of view of reasonable inference the only reasonable inference is that most if not all were lies. Why?

Because:

- prior to the war one key piece of evidence was known to be an outright forgery. Furthermore, the man sent to investigate said claim was hounded by the administration and his wife exposed as a secret operative in an extraordinary manner which destroyed an entire intelligence operation. Furthermore the forgery was so obvious, when revealed as such, that it beggars belief that the intelligence resources of the USA could have got it wrong "by mistake"

- prior to the war another piece of "intelligence" presented as the work of America and the UK's finest, was shown to be the speculative work of a student unconnected to the intelligence community.

- It must be noted that the two items mentioned above were the strongest pieces of evidence presented. The rest was just utterly inconclusive confetti, as widely reported before the war by something like 90% of the world's press. One would imagine that two world leaders eager to make a conclusive case would be eager to share any other strong evidence they had, yet none was forthcoming.

- The above must also be taken together with the fact that the White House apparently took temporary political control of the analytical mechanism actually providing the evidence, setting up its own unit of political appointees to re-interpret evidence that was found insubstantial by career analysts in the intelligence community. This in and of itself is like a big, fat air-raid siren blaring "DECEPTION". It is akin to a major corporation insisting that it is audited by it's own accountants - only they're not even accountants.

In light of these and many, many other facts and clues that I'm not interested enough any more to type (all of which were available to anyone paying attention, in the public space), any interpretation other than deliberate deception on a grand scale is within the realm of the possible, but unlikely enough to be outright fucking stupid.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by yguy

Not really:

The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.

[...]

yguy has a passport made out in Bizarro world

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Farren

- prior to the war one key piece of evidence was known to be an outright forgery.

If you're talking about the docs from the Italian journalist, I suppose it can reasonably said that that was known by somebody, but in light of this

Both the Butler report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report make clear that Bush's 16 words weren't based on the fake documents. The British didn't even see them until after issuing the reports -- based on other sources -- that Bush quoted in his 16 words.

one has plenty of reason to question your assertion.

Furthermore, the man sent to investigate said claim was hounded by the administration and his wife exposed as a secret operative in an extraordinary manner

What was so extraordinary about Dick Armitage gossiping about "secret operative" whose name he had somehow come across in an unclassified State Department memo?

which destroyed an entire intelligence operation.

Which intelligence operation was that?

- prior to the war another piece of "intelligence" presented as the work of America and the UK's finest, was shown to be the speculative work of a student unconnected to the intelligence community.

What are you talking about?

- It must be noted that the two items mentioned above were the strongest pieces of evidence presented.

Seeing how at least one of those items appears not to have been a factor in the administration's decision making process, this appears to be false.

The rest was just utterly inconclusive confetti,

Hardly. It was known that Saddam had possessed WMD, and that he had used them, and that he had failed to account for them as required under the terms of his surrender.

as widely reported before the war by something like 90% of the world's press.

How is it that so many US Democrats were so oblivious to the penetrating insights of the "world's press" before W was elected?

[Ari]

It would be interesting to see the WMD claims graphed against the "we are doing it for the Iraqi people" claims. I wonder if the second starts to raise as holes appear in the first.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Ari

It would be interesting to see the WMD claims graphed against the "we are doing it for the Iraqi people" claims. I wonder if the second starts to raise as holes appear in the first.

Yeah. I'm betting it would. I seem to remember the whole "liberating the Iraqi people from despotism" rally cry happening just as Coalition forces were crossing the borders into Iraq, after the "Shock and Awe".

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by yguy

Hardly. It was known that Saddam had possessed WMD, and that he had used them, and that he had failed to account for them as required under the terms of his surrender.

But of course. We knew because we'd provided it (we 'had the receipts'). We also knew that it had been destroyed and was no longer present in Iraq. Scott Ritter, who'd spent the Clinton years urging that something be done about Saddam and his weapons, was clear, before the invasion, that the invasion was not necessary for reasons of WMD....as did other international arms specialists with experience dealing with Iraq.

The invasion was unprovoked, unnecessary, wasteful, costly, stupid, ill-planned, falsely promoted, illicit, immoral and illegal. Subsequent actions by Coalition forces have been violations of international terms of military engagement and human decency. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should be on trial at The Hague for crimes against peace and humanity, and the Nuremburg Principles fashioned by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Republic of France should be fully enforced.

[Farren]

yguy I'm not going to get into it with you because that would be like trying to convince a brick to take up ballet.

Anyone who, at this point, doesn't think that the Bush administration lied, deceived, fudged, lied again, lied some more, misdirected, lied a bit more, hired a team of psychotic scriptwriters to write more lies, lied again, then lied a few hundred more times is either willfully ignorant, extremely stupid, lying themselves, (1) and (2), (2) and (3), or (1), (2) and (3).

From this I conclude that the only useful course of action in responding to these lies and the ignorant, the idiotic and the shameless liars that continue to defend their disseminators is to state facts, then mock and ridicule the perpetuators of falsehoods. Engagement in the hope of lighting a candle in a dark place is, at this point, a fools game and serves only to lend some legitimacy to a deceipt for which hundreds of thousands have paid the price of suffering and death.