President Bush: Is He a Liar?

Yeah. Bush lied to all the faithful Republicans, too.

I can agree with that. Its only a vitamin pill though. Sleep well.

129 pages and here is a scoop...Bush is still a liar.

This is just too funny. BernardR posts an article by a prominent neo-conservative - with extreme bias, and he wants to use this to make his point. ha ha ha....

Norman Podhoretz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Norman Podhoretz (born January 16, 1930) is an American intellectual considered to be a prominent neo-conservative thinker and writer.

A Brooklyn native, Podhoretz received Bachelor's degrees from both Columbia?-where he studied under Lionel Trilling?-and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He later received a BA with first-class honors and MA from Cambridge.

From 1981-87, Podhoretz served with the U.S. Information Agency. From 1995-2003 he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is connected with the Project for the New American Century. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Jewish Committee's monthly magazine Commentary from 1960 until his retirement in 1995.

Married to author Midge Decter, Podhoretz is the father of the columnist John Podhoretz.

I can't believe it..>Debra L A W..one of the most brilliant legal minds in the USA making two egregious mistakes in L A W!!!

Debra L A W said

quote

"We have OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that Bush cherry picked and shared information that appeared to support his war agenda"

BUT SHE DIDN'T SHARE THE EVIDENCE WITH US>

Could it be that there is nO EVIDENCE of that kind?

Present your Evidence, Debra LAW.

Debra L A W's second mistake was NEGLECTING to rebut any of Podhoretz's claims.

Debra L A W's response to the entire Podhoretz article which has, if anyone read it, documentation,was to say blah-blah.

I am very much afraid that the response made( blah-blah) by the learned prosecutor, Debra L A W is simply INADMISSABLE.

Podhoretz first paragraph from the article posted by BernardR:

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

************

Yes, a immoral and unnecessary war in Iraq by Bush and company telling Americans and the world that Saddam had WMDs and connections to al Qaida. We shouldn't need to go over the same speeches by Bush, Cheney, and Powell about "yellow cake, chemical labs, and those pictures Powell showed everybody those trailer chemical labs to make our point. All have since been exposed as lies.

If Podhoretz is supposed to be an American intellectual, we're really in bad shape.

It's immoral because the preemptive attack not authorized by the UN initiated what is now a massacre of innocent Iraqis by our bombs in the tens of thousands of innocent lives. If that isn't immoral, this guy Podhoretz doesn't understand human morals.

Mr. Imposter says that an article which is written by a prominent neo-conservative -with extreme bias, cannot be used to make a point because Wikipedia lists him as "a prominent neo-conservative neo-conservative thinker and writer".

I'll accept that but ONLY if any articles written by people who are characterized as being on the LEFT are also prohibited.

Mr. Imposter should utilize his time in checking out whether Mr. Pohoretz is lying or twisting the truth rather than doing an Ad Hominem on Mr. Podhoretz.

I will make it easy on Mr. Imposter. He can begin by totally refuting one of the alleged "lies" stated by Mr.Podhoretz-

quote--

The National Intelligence Estimate of 2002( NIE contains fifteen agencies involved in gathering evidence for the United States) offered "with high confidence" the conclusion that:

"Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions."

THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES OF BRITAIN, GERMANY, RUSSIA, CHINA, ISRAEL AND,YES,FRANCE ALL AGREED WITH THIS JUDGMENT"

end of quote


Yes, this is what Mr.Podhoretz wrote. Now, since Mr. Podhoretz, by virtue of being a neo-conservative, cannot possibly be wrong, it would be quite simple for Mr.Imposter to provide proof showing that the sentences above are inaccurate.

I await Mr. Imposter's proof(Please note, under the rules laid down by Mr. Imposter, no one on the left--by virtue of merely being on the left--may present evidence because of an obvious ideological bias.

I posted days ago six links that document the lies of George Bush and those of his subordinates. No one refuted the facts presented from those web sites. However, Rainman naturally, went above and beyond the call of duty as well as any sense of personal pride, and showed his a$$ by calling one website a conduit for Pravda.

Instead, days later, what was presented as a rebuttal was not any documention to support his own thesis that Bush was not a liar, but an unannotated article by self acknowledged conservative propagandist Norman Podhoretz who is a proud member of those Neo-Con artists of the Project for New American Century (PNAC) that itself presented repeated distorted strawman arguments replete with misleading logic and statements of others taken out of context.

So it goes from the den of liars lying to protect the lies of their lying buddies.

Now how about refuting with appropriate links the details presented in the link below, after all, the topic was "Bush lies" and these have been presented, One should expect from an adversary that these be rebutted with links to the facts, not opinion pieces which themselves are without proper documentation as to the statements declared.

http://www.bushlies.net/pages/10/index.htm

So the challenge presented to those who support George Bush is this; provide documentation that the things that support the theses that he is liar are untrue. Back up your own thesis that he is honest by debunking what is illustrated in the links I provided.

I will provide but three examples samples from the dozens linked with which you can proceed.

1. BUSH: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." [Bush on Polish TV, 5/29/03]

found to be untrue here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888

The Washington Post reported an explosive story that a secret, fact-finding team of scientists and engineers sponsored by the Pentagon determined in May 2003 that two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops were not evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program. The nine-member team "transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003."

Despite having authoritative evidence that the biological laboratories claim was false, the administration continued to peddle the myth over the next four months.



2. Bush Domestic Spying

During the 2004 campaign, Bush claimed "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

see video here: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002181.htm

The Bush administration has offered the following justifications for its spying on U.S. citizens:

No Time for Warrants It could not wait to get a warrant because it needed "to move quickly to detect" plotting of terrorism between people in the United States and abroad.GEORGE BUSH 12/19/05

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051219-1.html

No Time for Warrants: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the President to seek a warrant up to 3 days AFTER initiating the wiretap. The President never sought any such authority after the fact for this program.

Congress Gave Authority: "authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes . . . authorization. . . to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051219-1.html

Congress Gave Authority: The administration requested the ability to conduct warrantless searches as part of the September 11th resolution, but Congress rejected this. In fact, Gonzales admitted that he was told by "certain members of Congress" that "that would be difficult if not impossible," during his recent testimony before congress.



3. CONGRESS HAD SAME PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE

Bush charged that " . . more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. "

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051111-1.html

The Washington Post extensively analyzed this claim, concluding that: "Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material…Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country. In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release." (Washington Post, 11/13/05)

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=sr-109-1-129

confirmed elsewhere: http://feinstein.senate.gov/crs-intel.htm

This was confirmed by a Congressional Research Service report which found that the "President, and a small number of presidentially-designated Cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President (3) - in contrast to Members of Congress (4) - have access to a far greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods"

I would hope to get cogent rebuttals not rhetoric, but I know it is unlikely from the other side, so innuendo away. And Rainman I grant you but one rant, one post only to obsess about the object of your lip-smacking affections and wet dreams, THE MIGHTY CLENIS

Since I have watched this thread, I note with interest the abject denial of those who still support Bush and twist the intent of those who oppose the man's actions. I note with distaste that they are the ones, like Norman Podhoretz who are engaging in that hoary process of revisionist history.

If I am wrong about Bush's lies, you should be able to prove it.

Okie- I am sure you have noted the pathetic performance of those on the left-
meaningless statements that have no evidence to refer to

Ad Hominem attacks

refusal to rebut any part of evidence offered.

Shall we continually repost the same (insufferably long) article? That's certainly wowing everyone with your skilz.

clueless again are you? let me set it straight for you. when the thesis was made that "bush lied" evidence was presented to support that thesis in two parts.

first, his remarks were illustrated, then the thesis was proved by documentation presented that showed that his remarks did not conform to objective reality.

that is the way of the dielectic.

unfortunately, you and your buddies have chosen the way of the intellectually derelict.

having you and your buddies object to the thesis without documentation disproving it and rebutting the evidence supporting the original thesis indicates that you don't know what the fukk you are talking about.

as usual.

Mr. Kuvacz. I read your post. I think you are mistaken.

You wrote--"That is the way of the dielectic"

I have been looking all over the internet to find the "dielectic",but I cannot find it.

Also, I never noticed any documetation that PROVED that Bush lied. Would you be so good as to direct me to it?

Thank you, sir!!

(and maybe some clues about where I can find "dielectic". You may have some gnosis unavailable to only a few)

Oh come on, Mr.Kuvasz, you tell us about the dielectic( sic) that you know so much about which is the cornerstone of knowledge but you can't spell it?

Don't you read what you have written? That word--dielectic(sic) is the key word in your request.

Bernard waxes oh so sarcastic about other people's misspellings and seems blind to his own. What is this "documetation" you're seeking, Bernard? Just come off it.

I am seeking documetation(sic) on Kuvasz's dielectic( sic)

But, Mr. username, are you not aware of Mr. Kuvasz' erudition and reputation. He is far more learned that any three A2Ker's put together.

Here I must exclude, Debra L A W---the legal genius

Setanta---Historian par excellence

and one who has
been missing in
action, the
eximious
Mr. Blatham


One is simply not used to seeing Mr. Kuvasz make errors of any kind!!!!

maybe you haven't been keeping up on the news around here but I had a stroke last month that has left most of my left arm and hand paralyzed and has restricted my typing and forced me to rely on the unreliable a2k spell check, schmuck.

(S)he gave you a few examples last page. I'll repeat:




"There are none so blind who will not see"- great quote.

Well, Mr. Just an Observer- You have made some egregious errors.

You say that President Bush reported on Polish TV-
"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories"

WOULD YOU BE SO GOOD AS TO GIVE A LINK TO THE ENTIRE SPEECH GIVEN BY PRESIDENT BUSH ON POLISH T.V.?

I NEED TO KNOW WHETHER HIS COMMENT ABOUT 'BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES REFERS TO THE NINE MEMBER GROUP WHO WENT TO IRAQ.

In the meantime, I respectfully request that you read all of the material below including the quotes given by Democrats about WMD's

Thank you sir!!

Beginning of quote

COMMENTARY

December 2005

Who Is Lying About Iraq?

Norman Podhoretz

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.




The main "lie" that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary "lie" that Iraq under Saddam's regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even "imminent") possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us and/or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked.

This entire scenario of purported deceit has been given a new lease on life by the indictment in late October of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby stands accused of making false statements to the FBI and of committing perjury in testifying before a grand jury that had been convened to find out who in the Bush administration had "outed" Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to the retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV. The supposed purpose of leaking this classified information to the press was to retaliate against Wilson for having "debunked" (in his words) "the lies that led to war."

Now, as it happens, Libby was not charged with having outed Plame but only with having lied about when and from whom he first learned that she worked for the CIA. Moreover, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who brought the indictment against him, made a point of emphasizing that

[t]his indictment is not about the war. This indictment is not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

This is simply an indictment that says, in a national-security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person?-a person, Mr. Libby?-lied or not.

No matter. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, spoke for a host of other opponents of the war in insisting that

[t]his case is bigger than the leak of classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the President.

Yet even stipulating?-which I do only for the sake of argument?-that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq.

How indeed could it have been otherwise? George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Tenet had the backing of all fifteen agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States. In the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2002, where their collective views were summarized, one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that

Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and?-yes?-France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix?-who headed the UN team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past?-lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:

The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

Blix now claims that he was only being "cautious" here, but if, as he now also adds, the Bush administration "misled itself" in interpreting the evidence before it, he at the very least lent it a helping hand.




So, once again, did the British, the French, and the Germans, all of whom signed on in advance to Secretary of State Colin Powell's reading of the satellite photos he presented to the UN in the period leading up to the invasion. Powell himself and his chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, now feel that this speech was the low point of his tenure as Secretary of State. But Wilkerson (in the process of a vicious attack on the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Defense for getting us into Iraq) is forced to acknowledge that the Bush administration did not lack for company in interpreting the available evidence as it did:

I can't tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits, and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the UN on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can't. I've wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP?-Ammunition Supply Point?-with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they're there, you have to conclude that it's a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . . But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet's deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell's UN speech] was accurate.

Going on to shoot down a widespread impression, Wilkerson informs us that even the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was convinced:

People say, well, INR dissented. That's a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios.

In explaining its dissent on Iraq's nuclear program, the INR had, as stated in the NIE of 2002, expressed doubt about

Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes [which are] central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program. . . . INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors . . . in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program.

But, according to Wilkerson,

The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this RPM, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?

In short, and whether or not it included the secret heart of Hans Blix, "the consensus of the intelligence community," as Wilkerson puts it, "was overwhelming" in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam definitely had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was also in all probability well on the way to rebuilding the nuclear capability that the Israelis had damaged by bombing the Osirak reactor in 1981.

Additional confirmation of this latter point comes from Kenneth Pollack, who served in the National Security Council under Clinton. "In the late spring of 2002," Pollack has written,

I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: did anyone in the room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one did. Three people added that they believed Iraq was also operating a secret calutron plant (a facility for separating uranium isotopes).

No wonder, then, that another conclusion the NIE of 2002 reached with "high confidence" was that

Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.1




But the consensus on which Bush relied was not born in his own administration. In fact, it was first fully formed in the Clinton administration. Here is Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:

Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.

Finally, Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, was so sure Saddam had stockpiles of WMD that he remained "absolutely convinced" of it even after our failure to find them in the wake of the invasion in March 2003.

Nor did leading Democrats in Congress entertain any doubts on this score. A few months after Clinton and his people made the statements I have just quoted, a group of Democratic Senators, including such liberals as Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, and John Kerry, urged the President

to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

Nancy Pelosi, the future leader of the Democrats in the House, and then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, added her voice to the chorus:

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

This Democratic drumbeat continued and even intensified when Bush succeeded Clinton in 2001, and it featured many who would later pretend to have been deceived by the Bush White House. In a letter to the new President, a number of Senators led by Bob Graham declared:

There is no doubt that . . . Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical, and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf war status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.

Senator Carl Levin also reaffirmed for Bush's benefit what he had told Clinton some years earlier:

Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed, speaking in October 2002:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed as well:

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.

Even more striking were the sentiments of Bush's opponents in his two campaigns for the presidency. Thus Al Gore in September 2002:

We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

And here is Gore again, in that same year:

Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

Now to John Kerry, also speaking in 2002:

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force?-if necessary?-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.




Perhaps most startling of all, given the rhetoric that they would later employ against Bush after the invasion of Iraq, are statements made by Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, also in 2002:

Kennedy: We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.

Byrd: The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical- and biological-warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons.2

Liberal politicians like these were seconded by the mainstream media, in whose columns a very different tune would later be sung. For example, throughout the last two years of the Clinton administration, editorials in the New York Times repeatedly insisted that

without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year [and] future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again.

The Times was also skeptical of negotiations, pointing out that it was

hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as his country's salvation.

So, too, the Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with the admonition that

[o]f all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous?-or more urgent?-than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade's efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.3




All this should surely suffice to prove far beyond any even unreasonable doubt that Bush was telling what he believed to be the truth about Saddam's stockpile of WMD. It also disposes of the fallback charge that Bush lied by exaggerating or hyping the intelligence presented to him. Why on earth would he have done so when the intelligence itself was so compelling that it convinced everyone who had direct access to it, and when hardly anyone in the world believed that Saddam had, as he claimed, complied with the sixteen resolutions of the Security Council demanding that he get rid of his weapons of mass destruction?

Another fallback charge is that Bush, operating mainly through Cheney, somehow forced the CIA into telling him what he wanted to hear. Yet in its report of 2004, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, while criticizing the CIA for relying on what in hindsight looked like weak or faulty intelligence, stated that it

did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities.

The March 2005 report of the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission, which investigated intelligence failures on Iraq, reached the same conclusion, finding

no evidence of political pressure to influence the intelligence community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . [A]nalysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.

Still, even many who believed that Saddam did possess WMD, and was ruthless enough to use them, accused Bush of telling a different sort of lie by characterizing the risk as "imminent." But this, too, is false: Bush consistently rejected imminence as a justification for war.4 Thus, in the State of the Union address he delivered only three months after 9/11, Bush declared that he would "not wait on events while dangers gather" and that he would "not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer." Then, in a speech at West Point six months later, he reiterated the same point: "If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long." And as if that were not clear enough, he went out of his way in his State of the Union address in 2003 (that is, three months before the invasion), to bring up the word "imminent" itself precisely in order to repudiate it:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

What of the related charge that it was still another "lie" to suggest, as Bush and his people did, that a connection could be traced between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11? This charge was also rejected by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrary to how its findings were summarized in the mainstream media, the committee's report explicitly concluded that al Qaeda did in fact have a cooperative, if informal, relationship with Iraqi agents working under Saddam. The report of the bipartisan 9/11 commission came to the same conclusion, as did a comparably independent British investigation conducted by Lord Butler, which pointed to "meetings . . . between senior Iraqi representatives and senior al-Qaeda operatives."5

end of quote


I hope that this has been helpful to you, Mr. Just an Observer

WOULD YOU BE SO GOOD AS TO DO IT YOUR DAMN SELF? YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WANTS TO PROVE IT WRONG. BY THE WAY, THERE IS NO NEED TO SHOUT.




Anything but.
I don't know why I bothered. I'd would have had better luck getting my dog to understand physics than getting you to see the obvious.