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Bush Lied: The Evidence

alphieb said:
So what you are saying is that we invaded based on speculation?......
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It's not me who has said anything. alps says the administration ignored evidence. She's off gathering her support for this claim. It might be a while. ;)
 
alphieb said:
That has been a pretty costly speculation. We do not have to speculate that North Koreo has WMD.....hell why not invade them as well.
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stay tuned.
 
KCConservative said:
It's not me who has said anything. alps says the administration ignored evidence. She's off gathering her support for this claim. It might be a while. ;)
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Inspectors did not find WMD.....which proves Bush had another agenda. Unless he thought they were hidden somewhere, but this is a man who thinks Jesus tells him to do things. Please don't say Hussein had ties with Bin Laden.......false
 
Re: None so blind ...

KCConservative said:
First of all, I don't know what "team Bush" means. Is this a way of distancing yourself from your president because of your partisan hate?
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Obviously it's because you're not active in the GOP. It's a GOP generated name. You can take it as hateful if you like, but it comes from the GOP all the same

KCConservative said:
Is there a memo from the White House that indicates they want to be referred to in this way?
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It's from the GOP.
But, thank you taking the time to speculate about me. I'm flattered that you would spend your time on me. It's nice to know that you care so much about me. I can't promise to return the favor though. I hope you're not too terribly disappointed.

KCConservative said:
Second, when the intel had been presented to the president and his advisors, Iraq was considered to have WMD and to pose a threat to the region. The intelligence supports it. He believed it, given the 17 resolutions that Saddam had ignored. I beleieved it as well. In fact, I still do. So did a slue of democratic leaders (a point you refuse to acknowledge).
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Still not addressing the WMDs themselves, but rather the likelihood of their use.

KCConservative said:
Third, if words like "incompetence" and "derangement" are your idea of a polite debate, then perhaps you might want to look over the forum rules.
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I've seen nothing in the forum rules against inquiring as to your views as to the mental state of Team Bush. However, if you have, please point it out to me and I will be happy to abide by it.

So, the question remains,
"Why, in your opinion, did Team Bush decide to believe things that directly contradict the consensus of the US Intel Community as it was reported to Team Bush on the issues that I have mentioned?"​
 
KCConservative said:
It's not me who has said anything. alps says the administration ignored evidence. She's off gathering her support for this claim. It might be a while. ;)
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Hey, who are you calling alps? aps are my initials, KC.

In October 2002, George Bush said the following, in part:

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

Also at that time:

Declassified portions of a top-secret intelligence report reveal both the State and Energy departments ruled out the possibility deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sought high-strength aluminum tubing for the development of nuclear weapons.

The 81 mm tubes were a key component of President Bush's charge that Iraq was "reconstituting" its nuclear weapons program.

Energy "assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program," states the declassified summary, or "key judgments," of the still-secret National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE. The 90-page report was prepared last October by the U.S. intelligence community.

State's intelligence branch, known as the INR, agreed.

"INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment," page 5 of the report says. And it "finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose."

Less than a week after the report was circulated, however, Bush nonetheless insisted in a key Iraq speech in Cincinnati that the tubes "are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

The rest of the article is here, and it points out that Bush reiterated this assertion in January 2003.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33682

So, knowing that there were serious doubts that the aluminum tubes were obtained for nuclear weapons, Bush continued to assert such.

There is my evidence of his ignoring intelligence, KC.
 
oldreliable67 said:
So, I infer from this that you do not deny that there were WMD programs, but you do deny that Saddam had any intention of using them?
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Me personally, I don't know what intentions Hussein had. However, the USIC was saying that he wasn't going to attack the US w/ them.

oldreliable67 said:
The link you provided in support of this assertion was to the Kerr report, in which I could find no reference to support your assertion. Did I miss it? If so, just tell me which page and I'll go back to it and check again.
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Here's a link to a searchable version if it helps.

It's in the last paragraph of page 11. To wit:
The cases of WMD and Iraq's links to al-Qa'ida illustrate two different responses to policy pressure. In the case of al-Qa'ida, the constant stream of questions aimed at finding links between Saddam and the terrorist network caused analysts take what they termed a “purposely aggressive approach” in conducting exhaustive and repetitive searches for such links. Despite the pressure, however, the Intelligence Community remained firm in its assessment that no operational or collaborative relationship existed. In the case of Iraq's possession of WMD, on the other hand, analytic judgments and policy views were in accord, so that the impact of pressure, if any, was more nuanced and may have been considered reinforcing. Although it is possible that in the absence of strong policy interests, analysts would have been more inclined to examine their underlying assumptions, it is unlikely that such examination would have changed judgments that were long-standing and firmly held.
​
oldreliable67 said:
Others may well have observed those same behaviors and tendencies and arrived at different conclusions - as evidenced by those sources that you have cited.
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I think that most folks think that he would've liked to have them and that he would take whatever steps he thought he could get away with to get them.
But, that's neither here nor there when it comes to the things I'm saying Team Bush "misrepresented."

oldreliable67 said:
What would it take to convince me that Bush lied? Something more than assertion. Something more than opinion. Something unambiguous. Something incontrovertible, so incontrovertible, in fact, that members of his own party would admit that the evidence is incontrovertible.
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How many members?
 
There have been what, six different independant, non-partisan commissions put together to investigate this matter, yet all of them have found nothing. Not one iota of substantive, conclusive evidence of Bush's intent to lie (or that he was even wrong about the WMD in the first place).

And the last one of these reports that came out proved that there was zero difference between the intel being given the president and that which was given to Congress. How did all these other countries and all these Democrats come to the same conclusion with the same evidence if this was a unilateral distortion from the Bush camp?

That's what I mean. The conspiracy theories just never quite add up.
 
aquapub said:
There have been what, six different independant, non-partisan commissions put together to investigate this matter ...
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This is untrue. An oft repeated talking point, but untrue talking point.

The only group that is looking into the angle of how the intel was used and whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information is the SSCI Phase II report which is not done.
 
Re: None so blind ...

Simon W. Moon said:
It's a GOP generated name.

Still not addressing the WMDs themselves, but rather the likelihood of their use.

I've seen nothing in the forum rules against inquiring as to your views as to the mental state of Team Bush. However, if you have, please point it out to me and I will be happy to abide by it.

So, the question remains,
"Why, in your opinion, did Team Bush decide to believe things that directly contradict the consensus of the US Intel Community as it was reported to Team Bush on the issues that I have mentioned?"​
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I would like to see where the GOP generated the term Team Bush. Thanks.

I have been and continue to address WMD. We believed they existed, as I have stated. To this date, we haven't found them, which I have stated. here is the lie, which I keep asking.

You didn't use the dereogatory names to describe Bush's mental state. You used them to describe me. You said, "Your defense of Team Bush against the charge of lying is incompetenece or derangement instead of mendacity or perfidy?" Again, I refer you to the forum rules.

Nice try.
 
Re: None so blind ...

KCConservative said:
I would like to see where the GOP generated the term Team Bush. Thanks.

I have been and continue to address WMD. We believed they existed, as I have stated. To this date, we haven't found them, which I have stated. here is the lie, which I keep asking.

You didn't use the dereogatory names to describe Bush's mental state. You used them to describe me. You said, "Your defense of Team Bush against the charge of lying is incompetenece or derangement instead of mendacity or perfidy?" Again, I refer you to the forum rules.

Nice try.
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Ahem, KC. I provided you evidence that Bush ignored intelligence. See prior page.
 
Simon,

Thanks for the more specific link into the Kerr report.

You asked "How many members?" Enough to impeach.
 
alphieb said:
So what you are saying is that we invaded based on speculation?......
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KC....STILL HAVE NOT RESPONDED.....DID WE INVADE ON SPECULATION? OR SOME OTHER MOTIVE?
 
aps,

"INR accepts
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Here is part of the problem with having multiple intelligence agencies. When they all agree, fine, no problem. But when they don't, somebody has to arbitrate; somebody has to be the final arbiter of what is most likely and what is not. The CIA is, for better or worse, the final arbiter.

From the October 2002 NIE which was presented at a WH background briefing,

Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998.

How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.

If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.

Without such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009, owing to inexperience in building and operating centrifuge facilities to produce highly enriched uranium and challenges in procuring the necessary equipment and expertise.

Most agencies believe that Saddam's personal interest in and Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors--as well as Iraq's attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools--provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. (DOE agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)

Iraq's efforts to re-establish and enhance its cadre of weapons personnel as well as activities at several suspect nuclear sites further indicate that reconstitution is underway.
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Source.

While "most agencies" believed them to be so, the CIA recognized that not agreed with the assessment that the tubes in question were for a nuclear weapons program.

The Senior Administration Official delivering the briefing said,

The NIE, itself, is about a 90-page document based upon thousands and thousands of pages of intelligence from a wide spectrum of capabilities that our government has -- whether it be human intelligence, technical intelligence, foreign intelligence. All those different data points are crystallized -- not all can be included in one document -- but are crystallized in the National Intelligence Estimate, and then summarized in the key judgments.

And as you can see here, at the very first, as it says in the Intelligence Estimate, "We judge that Iraq has continued it weapons of mass destruction programs, in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." It also cites in there, "See INR alternative view at the end of the key judgments." Again, INR is one of six agencies that participate in this process. And the NIE process allows for footnotes and for dissents on any particular aspect if they so choose.

It goes on to say, "We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts. Revelations after the Gulf War starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's said WMD programs."
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Again, the dissenting views were recognized, but the preponderance of views were given the most weight, as they logically should have been.
 
This is a classic red herring.

Excerpted from Peter Daou's thorough debunking of the pro-war arguments in Salon.com.

"The issue is not whether people believed Saddam had WMD (many did), or whether there was any evidence that he had WMD (there was), it's the fact that Bush and his administration made an absolute, unconditional case with the evidence at hand, brooking no dissent and dismissing doubters inside and outside the government as cowardly or treasonous. That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes). As I wrote in this post: "There we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn't’t attacked us, he hadn't’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief.

"In addition to the fear-mongering described above, the contention that Bush 'misled' the public is not simply about Saddam's WMD, but about the way the administration stormed ahead with their plans and invaded Iraq in the way they did, at the time they did, with the Pollyannaish visions they fed the world, all the while demonizing dissent and smearing their critics.

"...the crux of the issue is proportionality. Whether or not Bill Clinton or France or the U.N. believed Saddam was a threat, the administration's apocalyptic words and drastic actions (preemptively invading a sovereign nation) were decidedly out of proportion to the level and immediacy of the threat. THAT is the issue."

Amen!

So now that your red herring has been exposed, why don't you answer these legitimate and well-founded criticisms.
 
KCConservative said:
Thanks for the Buzzflash link, hipster. Let's see what else Buzzflash says:

Articles in the BuzzFlash Contributor section are posted as-is. Given the timeliness of some Contributor articles, BuzzFlash cannot verify or guarantee the accuracy of every word. We strive to correct inaccuracies when they are brought to our attention.

Again, you present a wealth of quotes by the president. Some of which turned out to be true and some turned out to be false. I keep asking, however, where is the lie?

Would you like to see a long list of liberals who said the same things? Would that make them liars too?
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Well, you're changing the subject of course. It's the president who got over 2000 Americans killed. Whether other liberals said things that weren't true is not the issue. They didn't cause death by deception.
 
argexpat said:
This is a classic red herring.

Excerpted from Peter Daou's thorough debunking of the pro-war arguments in Salon.com.

"The issue is not whether people believed Saddam had WMD (many did), or whether there was any evidence that he had WMD (there was), it's the fact that Bush and his administration made an absolute, unconditional case with the evidence at hand, brooking no dissent and dismissing doubters inside and outside the government as cowardly or treasonous. That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes). As I wrote in this post: "There we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn't’t attacked us, he hadn't’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief.

"In addition to the fear-mongering described above, the contention that Bush 'misled' the public is not simply about Saddam's WMD, but about the way the administration stormed ahead with their plans and invaded Iraq in the way they did, at the time they did, with the Pollyannaish visions they fed the world, all the while demonizing dissent and smearing their critics.

"...the crux of the issue is proportionality. Whether or not Bill Clinton or France or the U.N. believed Saddam was a threat, the administration's apocalyptic words and drastic actions (preemptively invading a sovereign nation) were decidedly out of proportion to the level and immediacy of the threat. THAT is the issue."

Amen!

So now that your red herring has been exposed, why don't you answer these legitimate and well-founded criticisms.
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ummmmm....snap.
 
Re: None so blind ...

KCConservative said:
I have been and continue to address WMD. We believed they existed, as I have stated. To this date, we haven't found them, which I have stated. here is the lie, which I keep asking.
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Why not address what I've pointed out as lies instead of talking about something else?

KCConservative said:
You didn't use the dereogatory names to describe Bush's mental state. You used them to describe me. You said, "Your defense of Team Bush against the charge of lying is incompetenece or derangement instead of mendacity or perfidy?" Again, I refer you to the forum rules.
Nice try.
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If you exclude the rest of the sentence, "... instead of mendacity or perfidy," you may have a case that I was describing you defense instead of saying what your defense consisted of.
However, if you do that, I'm still talking about your defense and not you.
Further, if one takes the entire sentence in context it shows that I was speaking of what you're saying of Team Bush in their defense. You're saying that they are either deranged or incompentent instead of perfidious or mendacious.
Nor does your interpretation account for the question mark.

Here's the whole thing;
So Team Bush said things that went against what the US Intel Community was saying and you're maintaining that these things were not a lie because Team Bush earnestly believed that they knew better than the US Intel Community?
Is that the size of it?
Your defense of Team Bush against the charge of lying is incompetenece or derangement instead of mendacity or perfidy?
​
Nice try on the sidetracking / hijacking.

The question remains.

"Why, in your opinion, did Team Bush decide to believe things that directly contradict the consensus of the US Intel Community as it was reported to Team Bush on the issues that I have mentioned? Are they mendacious? Perfidious? Incompetent? Or deranged"
​
Whenever you get done dodging etc, feel free to answer it.
 
expat,

Have you read any of the NIEs available from either the CIA web site or the gwu web site? If you haven't, you should. You're making some very assertive statements but so far, you're relying largely on the posts from rather partisan sources to back them up. Unfortunately, every one of those posts that you are relying on are historically demonstrably so biased that it is hard for anyone other than someone equally biased to give them very much credibility.

That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes).
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When I read the NIEs and the other source material that is publicly available, and then peruse the commentaries on the same material from "both sides of the aisle", I get the impression that there is very a 'beauty in the eye of the beholder' effect at work. That is, people are finding in the material what they want to find. You want the Bushies to guilty? Then they are and commentaries from Salon.com prove it! You want the Bushies to be not guilty? Then read Christopher Hinchely!

My suggestion: go read the source docs and make up your own mind. Maybe you have already done so. If you have, I apologize - it hasn't shown from your posts.

Have you read
 
Why, in your opinion, did Team Bush decide to believe things that directly contradict the consensus of the US Intel Community as it was reported to Team Bush
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Did they? The info (White House briefing and NIE) that I read did not suggest that at all. The WH briefing included references to the DOE's disagreement with the aluminum tubes, for example.

Which did they "directly contradict"?
 
oldreliable67 said:
You want the Bushies to be not guilty? Then read Christopher Hinchely!
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I think you mean Christopher Hitchens? Are you serious?
Hitchens supports the war, but for neoconservative reasons. He understands why we are fighting this war and it is not for the reasons George Bush gave us. You're just too stubborn to admit it.
Christopher Hitchens is an iconoclast. No one in this country should count on him to back a party line. He's not American! And an outspoken atheist with a history of socialism. Good luck with that one.
 
Originally Posted by KCConservative:
You posted an interesting Op/Ed piece, Billo. That being said, the writer continues to show, as you do, quote after quote of the president saying he believed in Saddam's WMD program. That's what he believed. That's what I believed. Oh, and that's what your liberal heros believed as well. To date, we have not uncovered the stockpiles of weapons that we expected. Doesn't mean they never existed. It means they haven't been found. Does any of this mean the president lied? I don't see it. I see a lot of folks saying it, but I see no one proving it. Keep shouting it, though. Red State America loves it! Tell us, are Gore and Kerry and Edwards and Kennedy and Pelosi liars too? Or were they just 'mistaken' when they said they believed Saddam harbored terrorists, had accumulated WMD and was a threat to the region and his own people?
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When you say you have something, and you don't, that's a lie. When his Administration stood up in front of this whole country and basically stated, "Hussein has WMD's" and "we know where they are!" was a lie. Because he didn't have WMD's, and they didn't know where they were. In fact, they publically admitted they were going to stop looking for them because they hadn't found any.

His bigger lie was acting like he was building a case for war when he already started the war back in April 2002. Long before Congress gave authorization. And that is an impeachable act. When you look at all this in the light of DSM, a picture starts to emerge of Bush that he doesn't really give a damn whether he tells the truth or not. He's an arrogant SOB and the worst President we have ever had.

Building a case that Iraq was a threat was not only a lie, but total bullshit. That country barely has running water and electricity. Then we go in there and drop more ordinance than all the bombs dropped in WWII, and you're OK with that. Just what kind of human being are you?
 
Oops! Yep, meant Hitchens! I was thinking of his article in the Weekly Standard from September 5, titled "A War to be Pround Of", in which he points out some facts that seem to be generally ignored in the "was Saddam supporting terrorism and/or in cahoots with Al Qaeda" part of the Iraq debate. He said,

"Childishness is one thing...but puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming. "You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in Al Qaeda...blah blah blah pants on fire." ...at the very least,...Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam's senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; Saddam's agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negoitating to puchase missles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the gread Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting Tariq Aziz...the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem."

Hitchens goes on to write,

"In logic and morality, one must ... compare the current state of the country with the likely or probable state of it had Saddam and his sons been allowed to go on ruling...At once, one sees that all the the alternatives would have been infinitely worse, and would most likely have led to an implosion--as well as opportunistic invasions from Iran and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of their respective interests or confessional clienteles. This would in turn have necessitated a more costly and bloody intervention by some kind of coalition, much too late and on even worse terms and conditions. This is the lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda yesterday, and of Darfur today...A broken Iraq was in our future no matter what, and was a responsibility (somewhat conditioned by our past blunders) that no decent person could shirk. The only unthinkable policy was one of abstention."

Hitchens' reasons may be neoconservative reasons, but in the article quoted above, he lines up behind Bush and Blair.
 
Billo,

when he already started the war back in April 2002. Long before Congress gave authorization
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To what does that assertion refer to?
 
Billo_Really said:
...a picture starts to emerge of Bush that he doesn't really give a damn whether he tells the truth or not.

He's an arrogant SOB and the worst President we have ever had.

Building a case that Iraq was a threat was not only a lie, but total bullshit.

Just what kind of human being are you?
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Your party must be proud of your logical comments. :roll:
 
aps said:
How the heck am I supposed to read that?
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Top left corner has an <English> button for an alternate version.

My favorite part is the story where AJ complains about the President using "media terrorism" against them.
Oh and the political cartoons are hilarious.
 
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