George Bush's biggest lie goes something like this: "We invaded Iraq because bad intelligence led us to believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could have been given to terrorists and used in an attack against the United States."
But the truth is that George Bush had his sights set on Saddam all along. An insider eyewitness, Paul O'Neill, has publicly testified that Iraq was on the Bush administration's agenda within days of taking office and eight months before 9/11 (link):
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
The truth is that after 9/11 George Bush wanted to find a way to blame Saddam for 9/11, even after advisors (including George Tenet) told him that Al Qaeda and bin Laden were responsible. An insider eyewitness, Richard Clarke, has publicly testified to Mr. Bush's (and Don Rumsfeld's among others) misplaced obsession with Saddam after 9/11 (
link):
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
The truth is that after 9/11 George Bush was dissatisfied with what the intelligence community was telling him about Saddam so he had an "Office of Special Plans" set up to create intelligence that he could use against Saddam (link):
...only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. ...they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war.
The truth is that by February 2003 weapons inspectors had already realized that the intelligence they were receiving from the US was "garbage." This was not some secret that was hid from Mr. Bush. Weapons inspectors themselves spoke to 60 Minutes and their story was broadcast on National Television (link):
In fact, the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbors - or U.S. troops in the region, or even Israel - is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable. The inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they've begun to express that anger privately in no uncertain terms.
U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.
· Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found "nothing."
· Example: Saddam's presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found "nothing."
· Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the U.N. calls the "Iraqi alibi air tight."
So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they've been getting as "garbage after garbage after garbage."
The truth is that by February 2003 George Bush had not focused on diplomacy as promised but had secretly diverted funds and equipment from the real War on Terror in Afghanistan and had already directed Centcom commander Tommy Franks to plan an invasion of Iraq. Senator Bob Graham recently confirmed this again in his new book (link):
Graham also revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, just four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources -- including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders -- were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.
Graham recalled this conversation at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa with Franks, then head of Central Command, who was ``looking troubled'':
``Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan.''
''Excuse me?'' I asked.
''Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq,'' he continued.
Graham concluded: 'Gen. Franks' mission -- which, as a good soldier, he was loyally carrying out -- was being downgraded from a war to a manhunt.''
The truth is that by March 2003, when George Bush threatened to invade unless Saddam stepped down and declared that no one could possibly say Saddam had disarmed, weapons inspectors were traveling the length and breadth of Iraq with unfettered access and many people were saying that the evidence indicated that Saddam might indeed have disarmed, since, after exhaustive searches, we could find no evidence he had not (link):
(AP) U.N. weapons inspectors climbed aboard a plane and pulled out of Iraq on Tuesday after President Bush issued a final ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to step down or face war.
A plane carrying the inspectors took off from Saddam International Airport at 10:25 a.m. It landed an hour and a half later in Laranca, Cyprus where the inspectors have a base.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday ordered all U.N. inspectors and support staff, humanitarian workers and U.N. observers along the Iraq-Kuwait border to evacuate Iraq after U.S. threats to launch war.
U.N. weapons inspectors arrived in Baghdad for the first time in four years on Nov. 27, 2002 and resumed inspections two days later. During four months of inspections, arms experts traveled the length of the country hunting for banned weapons of mass destruction.
From Mr. Bush's speech given at the same time (
link):
Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.
Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power.
The truth is that it shouldn't have made any difference what the intelligence community said inasmuch as the facts on the ground in Iraq were trumping bad intelligence.
In a debate with Ann Richards George Bush said:
"I think the biggest thing Texas must do is to end the post-Vietnam War syndrome, which blames others for society's ills. All policy in Texas must say to each and every individual, 'You are accountable for your behavior.'"
But when it came time to accept responsibility for misleading the world and the American public before the Iraq War, Mr. Bush refused to be held accountable for his decision and tried to pass the buck to the intelligence community. Now is the time for him to stop lying and accept responsibility for his decision, as President, to ignore what the weapons inspectors were saying and invade Iraq anyway, as he had been planning in one way or another for at least two whole years.
This lie has been addressed by at least three blockbuster books and over and over in other forms. Mr. Bush is clearly lying and failing to measure up to the accountability standards he would set for others.