Bush lied

[Tigermike 3,078]

'Bush lied' and the lying liars who perpetuate it

Jonah Goldberg

January 16, 2004

Sen. Ted Kennedy gave another one of his angry speeches this week. With all the gravitas he could muster, he recycled his standard complaint: that the Iraq war was never really about WMDs or the war on terror. It was a "political product" from "Day 1" of the president's administration.

This echoes Kennedy's earlier diatribes, like last fall when he said, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

Personally, I think Kennedy's an embarrassment to his party. But that doesn't change the fact that he's taken seriously or that he speaks for a large constituency. So let's try to deal with the "Kennedy School's" view of the Iraq war.

First let me admit that I think the failure to find significant evidence of weapons of mass destruction easily constitutes one of the greatest intelligence blunders since Pearl Harbor. There's still a chance we'll find something. But if we do, it will probably be too little, too late to change this basic assessment.

Critics of the Bush Administration are probably cheering, "Finally! Goldberg's stopped drinking the White House's Kool-Aid!"

But hold on. To argue that this was a huge intelligence blunder is to largely let George Bush off the hook for the even-more-popular Bush critique: that he lied to the American people about Iraq.

For Bush to have lied, he had to have known that there were no WMDs, right? It's not a lie unless you know the truth. If you say something you think is true that later turns out to be false, we don't call that a "lie," we call that a "mistake."

You could look it up.

This vital distinction seems to be lost on many smart people. For example, the online magazine Slate has been hosting an interesting discussion among the most respected and prominent liberals who supported the Iraq war. The question before them, more or less, is whether they regret it. Some do. Some don't. Most hold positions awash in shades of gray.

One of those is Kenneth Pollack, the former Clinton NSC staffer and author of the hugely influential book, "The Threatening Storm." Pollack's book was the most coherent and sustained case for the war from any quarter. Slate's round-robin is timed to coincide with a must-read cover story in the current issue of The Atlantic in which Pollack tries to figure out where he - and we - went wrong on WMDs.

Anyway, Pollack tells Slate, "If I had to write 'The Threatening Storm' over again I certainly would not have been so unequivocal that war was going to be a necessity."

In response, George Packer, a prominent liberal hawk, says, "Ken Pollack should be congratulated: How many leading voices on this issue have subjected themselves to such honest criticism? What he got wrong he got wrong because the intelligence was mistaken. What the administration got wrong it got wrong because it didn't care about the intelligence."

This encapsulates pretty much everything that's wrong with even the White House's most respected critics: a nearly total inability to consider the possibility that this administration operated in good faith.

Packer says Pollack's mistake was based on the best intelligence available; however, Bush & Co are a bunch of bloodthirsty ideologues or greedy liars or both.

Unfortunately, there are too many anti-Bush slanders out there to count, let alone debunk, but they are all premised on the "fact" that Bush lied.

But nobody has made a remotely persuasive case that Bush lied. The German, Russian, French, Israeli, British, Chinese and U.S. governments all agreed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The German assessment was even more dire than our own. They were convinced Saddam would have a nuclear weapon by 2005.

Bill Clinton and his entire administration believed Saddam had WMDs. In 2002 Robert Einhorn, Clinton's point man on WMDs, testified to Congress, "Today, or at most within a few months, Iraq could launch missile attacks with chemical or biological weapons against its neighbors" including our 100,000 troops in Saudi Arabia.

The threat - chemical, biological and nuclear - against U.S. territory proper was only a few years away, according to Einhorn. Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman, Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder: all of these people believed Iraq had major stockpiles of WMDs.

Were they all "liars" like President Bush? No? Why not?

You can't have it both ways. You can't say Bush lied while others who said the same thing were being honest. The White House was operating with fundamentally identical information to that of Clinton, Pollack and Einhorn. What was different was that this White House needed to deal with the post-9/11 world.

Maybe that clouded Bush's judgment - or opened his eyes. Let's have that argument. I certainly believe mistakes were made (though I still believe the war was right and just). But if you start from Kennedy's premise that the WMD thing was made up, I can't take you seriously.

[TitanTiger 20,542]

This encapsulates pretty much everything that's wrong with even the White House's most respected critics: a nearly total inability to consider the possibility that this administration operated in good faith.

This absolutely sums up the Dem position. They give Clinton and Gore, guys who were caught in lie after intentional lie, the benefit of the doubt. But they'll grasp at any straw to call what Bush did a "lie" because they know "mistake" doesn't rouse the troops.

[Tiger Al 0]

No, it's that 'mistake' doesn't pass the smell test.

[TitanTiger 20,542]

No, it's "Bush lied" and "Bush knew" and all that other whiny crap that's stinking up the joint.

[Donutboy 0]

No, it's that 'mistake' doesn't pass the smell test.

Yeah, TA. All those "liberal" whiners such as The American Conservative, Army College, Former Bush cabinet members, et al, are really stretching the Bush lied comments. Forget that Bush wanted war in Iraq as soon as he took office. Forget that he was looking for a reason,any reason, that would be able to appease the American public. Forget that our own intelligence couldn't verify ANY of the anonymous intelligence used to sell this war. Forget that Bush stated uneqivicobly that all of his allegations were hard, cold facts. Bush has never lied to us, and regardless of what information surfaces otherwise, Bush simply doesn't lie. He's a George Washington reincarnate. Get with the program son!!

[CarolinaTiger 0]

DB: did paul o'neill claim bush lied?

did another former cabinet member?

help me out w/ that...

[TitanTiger 20,542]

Yeah, TA. All those "liberal" whiners such as The American Conservative, Army College, Former Bush cabinet members, et al, are really stretching the Bush lied comments. 

Well, apparently they share the liberal myopia that confuses "lie" with "mistake".

Forget that Bush wanted war in Iraq as soon as he took office.

Sort of like you forget that regime change in Iraq was a policy that Clinton signed into place back in 1998, and that O'Neill clarified his comments to say that he wasn't surprised that the Bush administration addressed this policy early on, but that his concern was the level of priority it got early on?

Forget that he was looking for a reason,any reason, that would be able to appease the American public.

Says you...which isn't really saying much.

Forget that our own intelligence couldn't verify ANY of the anonymous intelligence used to sell this war. Forget that Bush stated uneqivicobly that all of his allegations were hard, cold facts. Bush has never lied to us, and regardless of what information surfaces otherwise, Bush simply doesn't lie. He's a George Washington reincarnate. Get with the program son!!

Until you can state something in a language other than rabid delusional liberal, I'll just forget to take you seriously.

[Tiger Al 0]

Have another drink, Titan. Hopefully, it'll be over soon.

[TitanTiger 20,542]

If it's what you're having, I'll pass.

[Donutboy 0]

Yeah, TA. All those "liberal" whiners such as The American Conservative, Army College, Former Bush cabinet members, et al, are really stretching the Bush lied comments. 

Well, apparently they share the liberal myopia that confuses "lie" with "mistake".

Forget that Bush wanted war in Iraq as soon as he took office.

Sort of like you forget that regime change in Iraq was a policy that Clinton signed into place back in 1998, and that O'Neill clarified his comments to say that he wasn't surprised that the Bush administration addressed this policy early on, but that his concern was the level of priority it got early on?

Forget that he was looking for a reason,any reason, that would be able to appease the American public.

Says you...which isn't really saying much.

Forget that our own intelligence couldn't verify ANY of the anonymous intelligence used to sell this war. Forget that Bush stated uneqivicobly that all of his allegations were hard, cold facts. Bush has never lied to us, and regardless of what information surfaces otherwise, Bush simply doesn't lie. He's a George Washington reincarnate. Get with the program son!!

Until you can state something in a language other than rabid delusional liberal, I'll just forget to take you seriously.

TT, the fact is that Bush clearly lied. Powell himself said that their was NO known link between Saddam Hussein and Al Quida and yet this administration lead us to believe such before the war. "Have You Forgotten?" Bush lied about the enriched "yellowcake" uranium that he claimed Saddam had tried to buy from Africa. When THAT lie was revealed by the person who personally told Bush it was untrue, his wife was outed by this administration; a federal crime. Whether Bush lied about WMDs or not is questionable, however we now know that our own intelligence questioned whether he did or not and years of UN sanctioned searches had found nothing. We also know that Saddam Hussein had offered to allow us access to search for ourselves days before the start of the war. We could have verified his lack of WMDs without the loss of life. You keep repeating the mantra that this was "Clinton's" policy. It would have ben Clinton's policy if Clinton followed through with it. However, even if Clinton had forced Bush to accept this policy, which you seem to be asserting, Clinton didn't force Bush to create selling points for the war based on, at best, faulty intelligence and, at worst, Bush lies.

[Tigermike 3,078]

Hopefully, it'll be over soon.

Yeah today is the Iowa caucus and your Dr Dean could very well be pushed to the back of the bus. Rather appropriate on MLK day don't you think?

[Tiger Al 0]

The Office of Special Planning was created for the sole purpose of filtering information acquired from all other intelligence sources. They cherry-picked the intel that 'supported' the administrations WMD claims and excluded all contrary intel. There have been plenty of people who have publicly stated at or before our attack on Iraq that everything that the Bushies said were at best half-truths and at worst lies. These people include UN inspectors, former administration officials, former intelligence workers, etc.

As I've said before, either Bush lied or he is inept. Take your pick but, either way, he's unfit to be president again.

[Donutboy 0]

The Office of Special Planning was created for the sole purpose of filtering information acquired from all other intelligence sources. They cherry-picked the intel that 'supported' the administrations WMD claims and excluded all contrary intel. There have been plenty of people who have publicly stated at or before our attack on Iraq that everything that the Bushies said were at best half-truths and at worst lies. These people include UN inspectors, former administration officials, former intelligence workers, etc.

As I've said before, either Bush lied or he is inept. Take your pick but, either way, he's unfit to be president again.

He was unfit in 2000. A majority of Americans confirmed in at the polls.

[Tiger Al 0]

The Office of Special Planning was created for the sole purpose of filtering information acquired from all other intelligence sources. They cherry-picked the intel that 'supported' the administrations WMD claims and excluded all contrary intel. There have been plenty of people who have publicly stated at or before our attack on Iraq that everything that the Bushies said were at best half-truths and at worst lies. These people include UN inspectors, former administration officials, former intelligence workers, etc.

As I've said before, either Bush lied or he is inept. Take your pick but, either way, he's unfit to be president again.

He was unfit in 2000. A majority of Americans confirmed in at the polls.

You're right...sorry!!!

[Tigermike 3,078]

He was unfit in 2000. A majority of Americans confirmed in at the polls.

But he WON didn't he!

[CShine 0]

Goldberg is self-delusional. Both Powell and Rumsfeld have frankly admitted that they never had any evidence of WMDs existing in Iraq in the period just before the war started. Not only did Bush lie; Goldberg is lying too. The problem with Goldberg is he seems to believe his own lies.

[Donutboy 0]

'Bush lied' and the lying liars who perpetuate it

Jonah Goldberg

January 16, 2004

Sen. Ted Kennedy gave another one of his angry speeches this week. With all the gravitas he could muster, he recycled his standard complaint: that the Iraq war was never really about WMDs or the war on terror. It was a "political product" from "Day 1" of the president's administration.

This echoes Kennedy's earlier diatribes, like last fall when he said, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

Personally, I think Kennedy's an embarrassment to his party. But that doesn't change the fact that he's taken seriously or that he speaks for a large constituency. So let's try to deal with the "Kennedy School's" view of the Iraq war.

First let me admit that I think the failure to find significant evidence of weapons of mass destruction easily constitutes one of the greatest intelligence blunders since Pearl Harbor. There's still a chance we'll find something. But if we do, it will probably be too little, too late to change this basic assessment.

Critics of the Bush Administration are probably cheering, "Finally! Goldberg's stopped drinking the White House's Kool-Aid!"

But hold on. To argue that this was a huge intelligence blunder is to largely let George Bush off the hook for the even-more-popular Bush critique: that he lied to the American people about Iraq.

For Bush to have lied, he had to have known that there were no WMDs, right? It's not a lie unless you know the truth. If you say something you think is true that later turns out to be false, we don't call that a "lie," we call that a "mistake."

You could look it up.

This vital distinction seems to be lost on many smart people. For example, the online magazine Slate has been hosting an interesting discussion among the most respected and prominent liberals who supported the Iraq war. The question before them, more or less, is whether they regret it. Some do. Some don't. Most hold positions awash in shades of gray.

One of those is Kenneth Pollack, the former Clinton NSC staffer and author of the hugely influential book, "The Threatening Storm." Pollack's book was the most coherent and sustained case for the war from any quarter. Slate's round-robin is timed to coincide with a must-read cover story in the current issue of The Atlantic in which Pollack tries to figure out where he - and we - went wrong on WMDs.

Anyway, Pollack tells Slate, "If I had to write 'The Threatening Storm' over again I certainly would not have been so unequivocal that war was going to be a necessity."

In response, George Packer, a prominent liberal hawk, says, "Ken Pollack should be congratulated: How many leading voices on this issue have subjected themselves to such honest criticism? What he got wrong he got wrong because the intelligence was mistaken. What the administration got wrong it got wrong because it didn't care about the intelligence."

This encapsulates pretty much everything that's wrong with even the White House's most respected critics: a nearly total inability to consider the possibility that this administration operated in good faith.

Packer says Pollack's mistake was based on the best intelligence available; however, Bush & Co are a bunch of bloodthirsty ideologues or greedy liars or both.

Unfortunately, there are too many anti-Bush slanders out there to count, let alone debunk, but they are all premised on the "fact" that Bush lied.

But nobody has made a remotely persuasive case that Bush lied. The German, Russian, French, Israeli, British, Chinese and U.S. governments all agreed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The German assessment was even more dire than our own. They were convinced Saddam would have a nuclear weapon by 2005.

Bill Clinton and his entire administration believed Saddam had WMDs. In 2002 Robert Einhorn, Clinton's point man on WMDs, testified to Congress, "Today, or at most within a few months, Iraq could launch missile attacks with chemical or biological weapons against its neighbors" including our 100,000 troops in Saudi Arabia.

The threat - chemical, biological and nuclear - against U.S. territory proper was only a few years away, according to Einhorn. Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman, Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder: all of these people believed Iraq had major stockpiles of WMDs.

Were they all "liars" like President Bush? No? Why not?

You can't have it both ways. You can't say Bush lied while others who said the same thing were being honest. The White House was operating with fundamentally identical information to that of Clinton, Pollack and Einhorn. What was different was that this White House needed to deal with the post-9/11 world.

Maybe that clouded Bush's judgment - or opened his eyes. Let's have that argument. I certainly believe mistakes were made (though I still believe the war was right and just). But if you start from Kennedy's premise that the WMD thing was made up, I can't take you seriously.

Don't take our word for it. Listen to some of your own heroes!!

WASHINGTON -- President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he was mapping preparations to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as soon as he took office......

....Bush said al-Qaida's surprise Sept. 11 attacks on the United States put him on a hair trigger to take pre-emptive action against Iraq rather than await evidence of a new threat to Americans.

Bush admits he targeted Saddam from the start

In other words, we didn't want to wait for any confirmation from our own intelligence, who were already questioning validity of the claims being made. We were on a hair-trigger, wanting any reason to reach our goal of regime change in Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was dealt a fresh blow over Iraq today when a second senior Washington insider said intelligence was misrepresented.....

His (Paul O'Neill) claims have been dismissed as the bitter attack of a sacked man by President Bush’s supporters.

But they were backed today by Greg Thielmann, director of the Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US State Department until his retirement last year.

But they were backed today by Greg Thielmann, director of the Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US State Department until his retirement last year.

    Mr Theilmann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m afraid I think the American public was seriously misled.”

    The US administration “twisted, distorted, simplified” intelligence in a way that led Americans to “seriously misunderstand what the nature of the Iraq threat was”, he said.

    “I’m not sure I can think of a worse act against the people in a democracy than a President distorting critical information,” he said.

    “For a President to abuse that sacred trust ... is to me a very serious development.”

"director of the Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US State Department"..... I know he wouldn't be as knowledgeable on foreign affairs as White House apologist Jonah Goldberg, but he seems to know what he's talking about.

How can Howard Dean's assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a "detour" that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O'Neill's revelations?

Hmmm, so far, that's Bush's own former treasury secretary, a former director of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US State Department, the government's own Army College, a former four star general, but wait, there's more!!

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no "smoking gun" proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.

Powell: We had no proof of Al-Queda - Iraq link

That's Bush's own Secretary of State's true confessions. Well, it would seem that there ARE some liars out there, but since we're getting conflicting stories from Bush's own people on who knew what, I'd suggest an investigation. Someone is lieing and I think we ALL want to know who it is. Myself, I find it hard to believe that Bush knew nothing before the attack in...... Wait, maybe that IS believable!!

[Tiger Al 0]

But, Donutboy, you MUST be mistaken. Dubya TOLD us in late 2002 that war with Iraq was a last resort only to be used if all other measures failed. Now you're saying (and it sounds like a lot of other credible people are too) that he was planning to go to war within days or weeks of his TAKING OFFICE??? <wringing hands> But...but...he wouldn't BETRAY our trust, would he?

Well <dog begins chasing tail> we didn't really expect to find WMD's just laying around, did we? Saddam used chemicals on HIS OWN PEOPLE...that's why we HAD to attack them. What...oh, we were supporting him then? Well, the poor people of Iraq were being deprived of Fren...uh...Freedom fries!!! Yes, that's it. We HAD to bring them democracy in its truest form...the FREEDOM fry!!! Yes!?!