The White House finally admitted this week that it played fast and loose with the truth in President Bush’s State of the Union address.

Bush claimed the British government had discovered that Iraq attempted to obtain considerable quantities of uranium in Africa. That uranium purchase lie was one of the main arguments the Bush administration gave for preemptive war on Iraq and the imminent danger Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) posed to the U.S.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer admitted the president’s statement was incorrect because it was based on forged documents. The White House acknowledgement came after British parliamentary investigations questioned the reliability of the intelligence.

Pressure has been building on Capitol Hill for full disclosure of the intelligence reports used by the White House and the National Security Council to justify war on Iraq. Questions also surround the involvement of Vice President Dick Cheney in pressuring CIA analysts and promoting selective use of data to make the case for war.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said an inquiry was needed to find out why as late as January 2003 “our policymakers were still using information which the intelligence community knew was almost certainly false.” Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC News, “This is a cloud hanging over their credibility, their word.”

With no WMDs found yet, more questions are being asked about the intelligence basis for claims of their existence, as well as for the administration’s continued claim of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Further proof also emerged that the so-called mobile biological weapons factories highlighted in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s UN presentation in February were no such thing.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson 4th, a 23-year career diplomat who was stationed in Iraq in the 1990s, told the Washington Post, “It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war.” Wilson said, “It begs the question, what else are they lying about?”

Wilson revealed in a July 6 New York Times op-ed that he was the envoy sent on a CIA mission to Niger to investigate the alleged uranium deal.

Wilson says that in post-trip briefings the validity of the uranium sales report was questioned by Cheney’s staff, who had access to a CIA cable in which Niger government officials denied the allegations as early as March 2002.

Suggesting that the war was politically motivated, Wilson wrote, “Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” In one interview Wilson said the administration’s war aim was to “redraw the map of the Middle East.”

As the White House dodged responsibility, the CIA, after an internal review, found that it did not have any new data after UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998. It admitted using information from the early and mid 1990s, and insisted that it kept the White House fully informed of this.

With growing bipartisan impatience and congressional closed-door reviews under way, the House voted on June 12 to release to all members intelligence reports previously only available to ten members of the Intelligence Committee.

If the bipartisan calls for broader public investigations are successful the Vice President and top Bush administration aides may be forced to testify under oath.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and 23 other Democrats are calling for wider public hearings by an independent commission. Kucinich said, “The Intelligence Committee is shielding the White House from a full investigation into the role the Vice President played in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.”

Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked his committee staff to open up an inquiry beyond the scope of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee’s closed review is only of past intelligence reports. The new inquiry would investigate “the objectivity and credibility of the intelligence concerning the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq immediately before the war and the alleged Iraq/al-Qaeda connection, and the effect of such intelligence on Department of Defense policy decisions, military planning and conduct of operations in Iraq.”

Wilson’s assessment of the Bush administration echoes the calls on Capitol Hill for a full, public investigation into the war and the occupation of Iraq, “If they’ll lie about things like this, there’s no telling what else they’ll lie about.”

The author can be reached at jleblanc@pww.org



Originally published by the People’s Weekly World

www.pww.org

USC Title 18, Section 2331, (a new category) - "domestic terrorism" - has been created and means activities that:

"involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."

Bush lied about Saddam's WMD capabilities (criminal fraud) to intimidate and coerce the public and congress to get his oil war in Iraq. Bush is, by definition of his own Patriot Act, a terrorist.

"White House lied to sell Iraq war"

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That is really the best that I can do.

(wheeze!) cough cough (gasp!)

Organize!

Organize!

(wheeze!) cough cough (gasp!)

(wheeze!) cough cough (gasp!)

That is really the best that I can do.

"Bush lied about Saddam's WMD capabilities "

For what it's worth, and I know the truth's not worth much around here but, actually, he didn't.

He definetely picked and chose the intel he wanted, as well he should have to sell us on a neccassary military action, but the claim that Iraqi WMD existed prior to the war and still do somewhere is absolutely irrefutable.

My question is this.

Why did Bush have to hard sell us.

Taking out Sadam's regimne is reason enough.

fresca is too stupid and vicious to be real.

Has she been fed this morning?

"...the claim that Iraqi WMD existed prior to the war and still do somewhere is absolutely irrefutable."

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"Bush lied about Saddam's WMD capabilities (criminal fraud) to intimidate and coerce the public and congress to get his oil war in Iraq. Bush is, by definition of his own Patriot Act, a terrorist."

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So, what? Am I actually to believe that you think the world would be better off WITH Sadam still in power?

Let me hip you to something. War sucks. It's ugly. But, all too often, it's neccessary.

Or do you live in a world where everyone gets along and war is for sport? If so, let me know. I'm moving there.

"Or do you live in a world where everyone gets along and war is for sport? If so, let me know. I'm moving there."

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"For what it's worth, and I know the truth's not worth much around here but..."

I can't speak for the rest of the shills, but the truth is worth a lot to me.

I would agree that going into Iraq was the right path. But I wouldn't say the President didn't lie to get the job done. I think it's safe to say that blurb in his State of the Union address was a (little, white) lie. I'll grant the leftys that much.

Sometimes lying is necessary.

But people were dying long before Bush lied. That's the nature of the beast.

I live in a world where war is for sport.

"Sometimes lying is necessary."

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I live in a world where war is for FUN!!!!

fresc-eric henceforth frescairic - is having another Psychotic Episode.

Let us all Pray for a Speedy Capture and Recovery.

We must have sympathy for the Reality Challenged.

Try not to laugh at them.

Too much.

Since you seem to be one of few reasonable minded people around here...

why didn't Hussein use his WMD when we invaded Iraq? He knew it was coming?

It seems like a lose-lose situation for him to me.

If he had WMDs and didn't use them, they'd be found and the war was just.

If he had them and he did use them, then we'd be vindicated for the invasion.

lose-lose

The only way he could win would have been to not use them, and to stave us off. I'm sure he wasn't that much of an idiot.

I can't for the life of me, figure out why he'd not use them.

Perhaps he moved them all to another location (Syria) and is there regrouping??

I want to be taken seriously SOOOOO bad.

That was me. Aren't I clever? My mommy thinks so!

"Perhaps he moved them all to another location (Syria) and is there regrouping??"

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...stuck in a Circle

Rounding the Bowl

stuck in a Circle

Rounding the Bowl

FLUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!

That Dingo is just one of my many multiple personalities?

You've all been duped.

HAR!

In fact, there's no one on this forum BUT me!

"That Dingo is just one of my many multiple personalities?"

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Finally.

A conversation about the wmd WITHOUT SOME ASSHOLE FGETTING PAID TO SCREECH, bUSH lIED AND pEOPLE dIED".

And, it's good to finally be able to point out that I don't back Bush across the board.

My feeling is that the WMD were still there in the months leading up to the War. I don't and have never believed that they were in the abundance we were told.

So what? One bottle of sarin in the hands of a monster like Sadam is enough.

I doubt that he had the capability to deploy whatever he had when we invaded.

Remember, the UN inspectors did find some empty warheads designed for chemical or biological agents and these were eventually destroyed. I suspect that it's much harder to hide the means of deployment then the agents themselves. Besides, his Al Samoud and SCUDS were never going to be a threat to us. But selling or giving a few pints of VX or Sarin to Al Queda was and is.

So. I think he didn't use them because he didn't have the means to. There's no reason to believe that all of his WMD were ever destroyed so they are either well hidden (not such a hard task to hide something very small in a whole country) or they are in Syria or in ahotel in Berlin or in London.

My problem with Bush, among others, has always been this show of evidence of "huge" stores of WMD. I never thought we'd find them and that it would backfire on him as it has now.

He should have said, "Look, they have WMD to some extant. The guy is a monster and is systematically killing and torturing his own people. He's a thug who is certainly not above helping ANY of our enemies. We're going to take him out simply because this risk, especially after 9-11, is way too high to take. To whatever extant the WMD are there, we'll destroy them. But ultimately, it's about destroying his power"

That by claiming you've all been duped, what I'm really saying is that my dominant personality, "Eric", actually perpetrated the duping on all of my subordinate personnas, since there's no one else here but me.

I duped me.

So why am I typing this, you may ask yourself.

No, you wouldn't ask that. You're not real.

Nevermind.

"There's no reason to believe that all of his WMD were ever destroyed so they are either well hidden (not such a hard task to hide something very small in a whole country) or they are in Syria or in ahotel in Berlin or in London."

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Unfortunately, had Bush not sensationalized the whole WMD thing, we'd never have gone into Iraq, and the right thing would have never been done. I mean, everyone in the world knows that Hussein was a wicked, brutal killer and deserved to get taken out. But the UN politicized it, and the liberals politicized it, and YES, Bush politicized it too.

Sometimes you've just gotta do what's right. Even when your neck is on the line.

GWB is a true leader. No matter how this comes out in the end. The man took the hard road, and did what he felt was right. I admire that about him.

"GWB is a true leader."

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"GWB is a true leader. No matter how this comes out in the end. The man took the hard road, and did what he felt was right. I admire that about him."

i agree. I just wish he had either been a better politician OR hadn't used politics at all.

Either sell the right thing on a platform that wasn't going to backfire, or just suck it up and do it without ANY sell.

As you can see, fresca is the favorite of my many multiple personalities.

Yeah, and with the dirt coming out now, Frescairic will probably be so upset he/she will take on a few more personalities, all of them boring.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.............

“I just wish he had either been a better politician OR hadn't used politics at all.”

All a politician really is, is a schemer who tries to gain advantage in sly or underhanded ways. Politicians are the roots of what is wrong with this country. They are sycophants of the highest order. We don’t need any more of them, and we don’t need them to be any better at lying to us than they already are.

What we need more of, are leaders. REAL leaders. People that make ballsy decisions, for the right reasons, and follow through on them. People that are not necessarily “aiming to please.” People that are not simply telling us what we want to hear.

Not people that are getting sexual favors from their interns and then lying to us, under oath, about getting them.

I admire truthfulness too. Had Clinton come out and said, “Yes. I got my knob slobbed. And I’m sorry.” That would have been the name of that tune. We could have just gotten back to business as usual.

But had GWB just come out and said, “Gee guys. That Hussein is mean. He may, or may not, have some nasty stuff over there, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel comfortable knowing that.” Or “Hey, that prick tried to assassinate my Father, and he gassed all those Kurds.” Well, that just wouldn’t have gone over well. Hussein would still be sitting in Baghdad laughing at us. Now who’s laughing? Certainly not Hussein.

So no matter how you slice it, sometimes a leader has to lie in order to get the mission accomplished. And what was lost? Do you have any less faith in him, because he GOT THE JOB DONE? Worst case, his numbers slipped a little in the polls. Big deal. It was a calculated risk. The Democrats are in such turmoil right now, they don’t know which way is up. Al Sharpton for President! HAR! They are certainly in no position to capitalize upon GWBs ballsy moves.

It’s like playing chess and being up on your opponent a knight, rook, four pawns and a Queen. You can afford to sacrifice your bishop for the checkmate.

"appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population"

Intimidate...and...coerce...? Like when the Bush Administration had the public so scared of imaginary terrorists that they seal themselves up in plastic and duct tape until they suffocate? That ought to be as least as criminal as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater... but consider the size of the theater here...

"Bush Knew Iraq Info Was Dubious" reads the CBSNews.com headline. Last night, as a Google search shows, the same story was titled "Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False." It turns out that the story says nothing of the sort. The reference is to Bush's statement, toward the end of his 2003 State of the Union address, that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/eveningnews/main560449.shtml

http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Bush+Knew+Iraq+Info+Was+False%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&safe=off&sa=N&tab=wn

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

So now there's this big brouhaha about just how this 16-word sentence got into a 5,500-word speech. Did the CIA know? That's a silly question. The CIA is a big organization; not everyone in it knows the same things. The Associated Press reports National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says that "if CIA Director George Tenet had any misgivings about that sentence in the president's speech, 'he did not make them known' to Bush or his staff." But CBS reports that "CIA officials warned members of the President's National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa." Of course, Bush didn't "make the flat statement"; he merely cited a British report, which turned out to be false. CBS acknowledges that "the statement was technically correct."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=2&u=/ap/20030711/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

Democrats, showing again their complete lack of perspective, are trying to turn this to their political advantage. "Campaigning in New Hampshire, Democrat Howard Dean demanded the resignation of any Bush administration official or federal government employee who failed to tell the president that claims about Iraq buying uranium from Africa were false," reports the Associated Press. Of course, the story seems to be that no one told Bush, which means that Dean is demanding the resignation of the entire federal government--which may end up vindicating another State of the Union claim that I'd thought was phony, namely "The era of big government is over."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39551-2003Jul10.html

John Kerry also got into the act. The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, "said he is not prepared to draw a conclusion on whether the administration deliberately misled the country about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but said his 'level of concern is very high,' " reports the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40403-2003Jul10.html?nav%253Dhptop_tb

The subtext of all this is the claim some Dems have been making for some time now, namely that Bush "misled" the country into war. But it is logically impossible for the SOTU snafu to support this claim. Bush delivered the speech on Jan. 28, 2003--109 days after Congress voted to go to war. Are Kerry and the others who voted "aye" going to claim that they somehow knew what the president was going to say more than three months in advance? What are they, psychic?

C&P'ing is all I have.

...on their lies watch the Spin Cycle go into Warp 9.

Just remeber:

"If two datums are mutually exclusive one, or both, are false."