One cannot have too many
useful summaries of the lies of George Bush (Willful Ignorance by David Corn at TomPaine.com).
A year ago—March 17, 2003, to be exact—George W. Bush addressed the nation and the world. He gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out town or face a U.S. military invasion. To defend the war to come, Bush declared, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." There was nothing ambiguous here: "leaves no doubt". Of all the false assertions—or lies—that Bush told before the war, this one was perhaps the most important, for Bush was informing Americans, citizens elsewhere, members of the U.S. armed forces about to be placed in harm’s way and Iraqis who also would pay the ultimate price that his actions, as controversial as they might be, were based on rock-solid, you-can-take-it-to-the-bank information. In essence, Bush was saying we know what we are doing and we know it is absolutely unavoidable.
That was not true. The issue is not merely that Bush apparently spoke falsely when he said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Good-faith mistakes based on incomplete intelligence can happen. But that is not what occurred in this instance. Before the war, Bush claimed he was proceeding with total certainty based on intelligence that was 100 percent reliable and utterly conclusive. He did not say that due to the available intelligence he suspected Hussein possessed WMDs, that he worried Iraq was seeking weapons of mass destruction, that he believed he could not allow the possibility Hussein might develop and amass WMD stockpiles. He maintained that the basis for this elective war—Hussein’s WMDs—was undeniable.
But it is now undeniable that the intelligence was not as absolute as Bush had claimed. Portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq—the summation of the intelligence community’s reporting on Iraq—were declassified last year. Various government officials have conducted post-invasion reviews of the prewar intelligence. And CIA director George Tenet, trying to defend his agency in public speeches and congressional testimony, has in recent weeks described the prewar intelligence. All of this provides indisputable evidence that Bush misled the public as to the intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs.
Mr. Corn's article continues with a summary of what is known about pre-war intelligence. And then he lists four big lies that the Bush Administration told about Iraq's supposed WMDs--none backed up by solid intelligence.
The bottom line is clear: there was plenty of uncertainty—not "no doubt"—in the prewar intelligence. And now some members of Bush’s national security team are covering their rear flanks by pointing to that incertitude and noting, well, of course, everybody knows that intelligence is full of iffy information.
According to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said "There’s no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons... We all know that. A trained ape knows that." (September 2002.) Somebody remind me why we supposed to vote for these liars. . .
