President Bush’s Lies: A report released by The Center for Public Integrity has put out a list of 935 false statements put forth by the Bush administration concerning the war in Iraq.
According to the report the following four statements were among the complete falsities concerning the war in Iraq. These statements all had something to do with the motives for going in to war, including Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and their connection to Al Qaeda. The four statements are:
August 26, 2002:
Dick Cheney said, “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.”
If there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq the Bush administration would have been the first group of people to bring us evidence of them. As it is it has been over 5 years since this statement was made and there has been no evidence of WMDs in Iraq. Iraq is not that big of a country; if this was not a lie than we would know it by now.
Even former CIA director George Tenet, director at this time, said that Cheney’s assertions that there were definitely weapons went beyond their own intelligence at the time. Another CIA official said, Where is he getting this stuff from?” according to journalist Ron Suskind.
Cheney’s statements on WMDs in Iraq was an outright lie.
Late September, 2002:
President Bush talked about the reasons for going to war in Iraq on his weekly radio address. He said, “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.
As stated above, if this were true than we would have more clear evidence than what we have now. All we have is the reasons given to go to war before we were engaged in a full-blown war effort, but no proof that they were true. Over 5 years and no evidence, it looks like another lie.
July, 2002:
Donald Rumsfeld was asked whether Iraq had a relationship with Al Qaeda and he replied with one, unmistakable answer, “Sure.”
An analysis of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda was done the same month by the Defense Intelligency Agency and they found no “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.
To add to this an earlier DIA assessment between Iraq and Al Qaeda came to the same conclusion.
This may not be an outright lie as there is no proof that Iraq an Al Qaeda had a relationship, but the fact that there was no evidence made his response of, “Sure,” way, way to damning for the information at hand. Not a full lie, but not the truth by any means.
May 29, 2003
President Bush did an interview on Polish TV in which he said that, “”We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.”
The problem with this is that there were never and biological laboratories or weapons of mass destruction found. According to Bob Woodward in his book State of Denial, a team of civilian experts was sent to Iraq to check on possible chemical weapons facilities and they concluded that the labs found were not for chemical weapons. The report indicated that the labs were probably to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
If anyone did find proof of WMDs and chemical weapons facilities than where is the proof? President Bush would love nothing more than to show proof, but he doesn’t have it, so he had to lie about it.
Read the report to see the rest of the 931 falsities HERE.
