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HappyMan

"Knowing" something is always subjective. How often do you run around saying that you KNOW something? How can you ever be sure? Do you qualify all of your statements?

You also seem to miss that If Bush did not know what he thought he knew was wrong, he wasn't lying he was just mistaken. If he thought that what he thought was true it was reasonable for him make a definitive statement.
Since you are not privy to the information that Bush based his decision on, you cannot with any accurately gauge how compelling it was or weather or not it justifies a qualified statement.
For Bush to have lied he would have need to know not just doubt. None has yet given one shred of evidence that Bush personally knew or doubted the WMD issue. The lack of WMD now does not retroactively disprove what Bush thought he knew two years ago. If anything it calls into question his analytical skills and the intelligence work of many nations.
Which does matter because enough people independent from Bush thought that they ‘knew’ Iraq possessed wmd to make a reasonable consensus on the issue.

The reason why I keep going back on this issue is that your calling Bush a liar and it is not well founded.

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Cassius

When I know that people are going to be recording, analyzing, reciting, and debating my words, yes I absolutely attempt to qualify all of my statements, so that I can never be caught in the position that Bush is in now.

Bush may be stupid, but his advisors aren't. The fact that he is in the position he is in now, where he either lied or was mistaken, and yet he DIDN'T qualify his statements when he was pushing the war (statements he made not once but multiple times over an extended period), indicates to me that either his advisors additionally made the mistake of letting him say such things without qualifying his statements (i.e., something like, "we are 99% sure Saddam has WMDs", or "all available intelligence indicates he does, and so we are operating under that assumption because we want to be prepared for the worst case scenario), a possibility I cannot believe actually happened, or Bush PURPOSEFULLY ignored their recommendations to qualify his statements, with the express purpose that by making a rigid, unwavering stance and sticking to his guns, more people would believe and support him. Considering that was his basic platform for the re-election, I don't have any hesitation believing in the second possibility, whereas the first strikes me as ludicrous.

Last I checked, purposefully omitting that there is a possibility you are wrong in order to gender support for a war that costs American lives, is also known as lying.

Yep, I say I know things all the time, and I'm often wrong. But if I'm in the position of being President of the United States of America, and I'm pushing what I "know" in order to foster war support, I'd damned better be right or I should expect that people will believe I "lied" when I didn't tell them the whole truth, when I didn't qualify my statements.

It's difficult for me to even consider the possibility that his aides didn't tell him it would be more accurate to say that "all available intelligence indicates Saddam has WMDs" instead of "Saddam has WMDs, absolutely, no doubt of it". Who else is more used to people twisting his words than the President? You can't tell me he didn't know that his words would be used against him if he were wrong. His aides MUST have recommended he qualify his statements, as I'm sure they recommend in every speech he gives.

Avoiding such an elementary recommendation has both an obvious motive (support for the war) and opportunity (he's the President). It is NOT such a stretch to believe that he, consciously and willfully, chose to ignore such a recommendation.

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MickityMike

Is the title of this thread "Bush lied"? If not, then why the frickity **** are you all insisting so, then getting upset when those of us with a grasp of history bring up the historical context?

Aren't you a historian or something? C'mon, HH, I've learned to expect better arguments from you.

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MickityMike

Sure, and several more have presented reasonable counter arguments. You’re implying that because some of us don’t agree with your Holy Anti-war Writ, that name-calling is now somehow “ok.” That’s intellectually dishonest and absolutely not worth my time.

How did those “inspections” go by the way? And those sanctions – ever hear of something called “Oil-for-Food”? This entire paragraph is one giant red herring, Steph.

I wonder if one could have reasonably explained to the citizens of Dresden that the fire-bombings of their fair city were actually quite necessary to end the Second World War and the Holocaust?

Well, toss out something other than logical fallacies, and we’ll be glad to reason right back at ya.

MickityMike

There were certainly degrees of certainty among many countries – what’s the point? That the US, the British and Aussies, the Jordanians, and the Russians were the most certain? That’s fine, until you consider exactly what the UN resolutions all said. They demanded that Iraq account for everything in question and cooperate with inspections, and on this count, the UN agreed with the United States and the others: Iraq was not cooperating, and so was (once again) in violation of a toothless UN resolution.

The debate was not over whether or not Iraq was in compliance, it was about WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. What would you have had the US government do in this situation? Wait and hope that the intelligence was wrong?

 

MickityMike

Nice post, Cassius. I disagree with it, but you're avoiding the name-calling of others.

I'd have to say that, especially in hindsight, George surely should've qualified his statements (although I doubt whether or not that would matter much today). My premise is that while I completely understand and even agree that the administration probably exaggerated a bit, that they felt no need to qualify their statements because they were convinced that they'd find enough in the end to justify their actions. While many countries did not support the invasion of Iraq, many countries actually were surprised that no existing stockpiles were found.

Stephanie S.

Okie Dokie, here's proof of at least a couple of lies, for those who requested proof...

9-7-02 Bush cited a satellite photograph and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency (IAEA) as evidence of Iraq's impending rearmament.

Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair talked to reporters before opening about three hours of talks at Camp David, Bush's presidential retreat in Maryland.

Blair cited a newly released satellite photo of Iraq identifying new construction at several sites linked in the past to Baghdad's development of nuclear weapons. And both leaders mentioned a 1998 report by the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, that said Saddam could be six months away from developing nuclear weapons.

"I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush said as he greeted Blair for a brainstorming session on Iraq. "We owe it to future generations to deal with this problem."

In a joint appearance before the summit, the two leaders repeated their shared view that Saddam's ouster was the only way to stop Iraq's pursuit - and potential use - of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

The Truth:

The IAEA report Bush cited was done before the 1991 Gulf War. Bush quoted a report that was done before the 1991 Gulf War, and he passed it off as a current report of intelligence in 2002. Bush quotes an 11 year old IAEA report and told the American people it was a current report. When in fact it was an 11 year old report. Unless you believe the President of the United States did not know it was an 11 year old report, it is a documented lie.

And in fact, the white house even later admitted it was an 11 year old report. The only problem is they called it a mistake, yeah right, he accidently quoted an 11 year old report about WMD's in Iraq. If anyone believes that, contact me because I have some land to sell you.

A senior White House official acknowledged Saturday night that the 1998 report did not say what Bush claimed.

Meanwhile, Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the U.N. agency, disputed Bush's and Blair's assessment of the satellite photograph, which was first publicized Friday. Contrary to news service reports, there was no specific photo or building that aroused suspicions, he told Windrem.

The photograph in question was not U.N. intelligence imaging but simply a picture from a commercial satellite imaging company, Gwozdecky said. He said that the IAEA reviewed commercial satellite imagery regularly and that, from time to time, it noticed construction at sites it had previously examined.

Gwozdecky said the new construction indicated in the photograph was no surprise and that no conclusions were drawn from it. "There is not a single building we see," he said.


and another

Bush made his remarks to reporters on 7-14-03 with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at his side, in response to a question from the Washington Post.

As quoted on the White House Web site, Bush said:

"The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..."

The Truth:

Everyone in the world knows that Saddam Hussein allowed a fully-equipped team of UN inspectors to comb every inch of his country - including previously off-limits Presidential palaces - for four full months.

George W. Bush knew this because he demanded that Iraq allow inspectors to return in 2002.

He knew this because millions of citizens around the world took to the streets to demand continued inspections, not war.

He knew this because he spoke about the inspections repeatedly, almost daily.

He knew this because he specifically urged the inspectors to leave Iraq when he issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Iraq on March 17, 2003.


one more, just for kicks

In February 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House that said: "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs." The report was so definitive that Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a subsequent press conference, Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction ."


edit....just another little tidbit...
On November 1, 2002, President Bush claimed, "We know [Iraq has] got ties with al Qaeda." Four days later, Europe's top terrorism investigator Jean-Louis Bruguiere reported: "We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. … If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country was helping build the case for war, admitted, "What I'm asked is if I've seen any evidence of [Iraq-al Qaeda connections]. And the answer is: ‘I haven't.' "


peace

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)

MickityMike

Sweet!

Before I proceed with commenting, could you provide your source please?

Hussein allowed “every inch” of his country to be combed? And the inspectors received Iraq’s full cooperation?

Could you provide the total number of inspectors and compare that to the total number of suspected sites? IIRC, the total number of sites was somewhere around 150 with each site taking weeks (if not months) to fully inventory.

Again, what’s your source for this (or are you just going from memory mainly)? And I thought the debate was about Bush’s alleged lies in order to gain American support for the invasion... If true, how does this support this contention? (...Or are you just trying to provide further CONTEXT to the discussion, as HappyMan and I tried to do to the earlier chagrin of others? If so, is it ok with you if I just summarily dismiss it with little consideration in accordance with the set precedent? )

Did you see the rest of the Iraq section of that report, or did you just quote the sentence that appears, at first glance, to give weight to your argument?

I don’t know that I’d characterize that report as definitively saying that Iraq was not in violation of UN resolutions and that Iraq was not developing or maintaining WMD stockpiles. (...Does that mean that Powell lied in this press conference that you’ve offered as evidence?) IMHO, no reasonable person can read that report and then pretend that it was definitive evidence that Iraq “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”

A disagreement is “evidence” that Bush lied about al-Qaeda connections to Iraq...? Allow me to introduce Stephen Hayes:

It’s a very interesting read. I recommend reading on to the second page.

I’m curious as to why you claim the above as “proof” when the Senate investigation of pre-war intelligence found that no undue pressure was placed upon US intelligence agencies by the administration, and that no such evidence exists as of yet that supports the “Bush lied!” theory?

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Strictly for the curious, here is the Joint Resolution authorizing force against Iraq:

By my count, that's 7 different reasons brought before the American public and the Congress of the United States for war in Iraq. We’d do well to remember this when next someone claims that the reasons for war “keep changing.”