The Liar in Chief. (Nearly a Thousand Porkies...)

I have never bought into the theory that Bush and others genuinely believed that Saddam was a threat to the United States and that they were only telling us what they believed to be true when they were making their case for intervention.

I think they had decided that they wanted to take out Saddam and that all evidence was regarded as useful or useless based solely on whether it advanced or hindered that cause.

Now a new study by two not-for-profit organisations has found that Bush and his officials told almost one thousand lies regarding Iraq after 9-11.

The Associated Press reports the study, published on the website of the Centre for Public Integrity, concluded the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretences”.

According to the study, 935 false statements were issued by the White House in the two years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In speeches, briefings and interviews, President Bush and other officials stated “unequivocally” on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda, or had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to get them. “It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaeda,” wrote the study’s authors Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith.

“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.” The study found that President Bush alone made 259 false statements – 231 about weapons of mass destruction and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaeda.

The truth was that Bush and his ideologues didn't care whether or not the evidence they were relying on was true or false, they cared about whether it made the case for war or not. As was famously spelled out in the Downing Street memos, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

In other words, if it aided the case for war it was in and if it didn't it was dismissed.

And, of course, the WMD/terrorist justification was chosen not because of any immediate danger but because - as Paul Wolfowitz admitted:

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

And, of course, there were further indications that Bush had always wanted to remove Saddam. According to his former ghost writer:

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.

Indeed, the lengths that little Georgie was prepared to go to in order to get his war were actually extraordinary:

Bush told Blair "that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of 'flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours'. Mr Bush added: 'If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]'."

Because, of course, Bush felt that starting a war with Saddam would improve his standing as President; indeed, he might never be considered a great President unless he went to war:

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically.

And, of course, Bush's ignorance of just what he was getting himself into apparently knew no bounds. Pat Buchanan revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties.

So we shouldn't be surprised at the level of lies that were told to make this war possible. One thousand whoppers.

And Pelosi still says impeachment is off the table? Unbelievable.

UPDATE:

Here's Cheney lying:



Here's an example of Cheney lying about his lying.



Here's Rumsfeld getting caught lying:



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Tags: Bush, Iraq war, lies, Cheney