The Truth About the War (Iraq)

[Bruce551]

The Truth About the War

N.Y. Times, 6 June 08

It took just a few months after the United States? invasion of Iraq for the world to find out that Saddam Hussein had long abandoned his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. He was not training terrorists or colluding with Al Qaeda. The only real threat he posed was to his own countrymen.

It has taken five years to finally come to a reckoning over how much the Bush administration knowingly twisted and hyped intelligence to justify that invasion. On Thursday ? after years of Republican stonewalling ? a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee gave us as good a set of answers as we?re likely to get.

The report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports. In other cases, he could have learned the truth if he had asked better questions or encouraged more honest answers.

The report confirms one serious intelligence failure: President Bush, Vice President **** Cheney and other administration officials were told that Iraq still had chemical and biological weapons and did not learn that these reports were wrong until after the invasion. But Mr. Bush and his team made even that intelligence seem more solid, more recent and more dangerous than it was.

The report shows that there was no intelligence to support the two most frightening claims Mr. Bush and his vice president used to sell the war: that Iraq was actively developing nuclear weapons and had longstanding ties to terrorist groups. It seems clear that the president and his team knew that that was not true, or should have known it ? if they had not ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for.

Over all, the report makes it clear that top officials, especially Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew they were not giving a full and honest account of their justifications for going to war.

The report was supported by only two of the seven Republicans on the 15-member Senate panel. The five dissenting Republicans first tried to kill it, and then to delete most of its conclusions. They finally settled for appending objections. The bulk of their criticisms were sophistry transparently intended to protect Mr. Bush and deny the public a full accounting of how he took America into a disastrous war.

The report documents how time and again Mr. Bush and his team took vague and dubious intelligence reports on Iraq?s weapons programs and made them sound like hard and incontrovertible fact.

?They continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago,? Mr. Cheney said on Aug. 26, 2002, adding that ?we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.?

On Oct. 7, 2002, Mr. Bush told an audience in Cincinnati that Iraq ?is seeking nuclear weapons? and that ?the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.? Saddam Hussein, he said, ?is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.?

Later, both men talked about Iraq trying to buy uranium in Africa and about the purchase of aluminum tubes that they said could only be used for a nuclear weapons program. They talked about Iraq having such a weapon in five years, then in three years, then in one.

If they had wanted to give an honest accounting of the intelligence on Iraq?s nuclear weapons, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney would have said it indicated that Mr. Hussein?s nuclear weapons program had been destroyed years earlier by American military strikes.

As for Iraq?s supposed efforts to ?reconstitute? that program, they would have had to say that reports about the uranium shopping and the aluminum tubes were the extent of the evidence ? and those claims were already in serious doubt when Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney told the public about them. That would not have been nearly as persuasive, of course, as Mr. Bush?s infamous ?mushroom cloud? warning.

The report said Mr. Bush was justified in saying that intelligence analysts believed Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But even then, he and his aides glossed over inconvenient facts ? that the only new data on biological weapons came from a dubious source code-named Curveball and proved to be false.

Yet Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney persisted in talking as if there were ironclad proof of Iraq?s weapons and plans for global mayhem.

?Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use them against our friends, against our allies and against us,? Mr. Cheney said on Aug. 29, 2002.

Actually, there was plenty of doubt ? at the time ? about that second point. According to the Senate report, there was no evidence that Mr. Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, and the intelligence community never said there was.

The committee?s dissenting Republicans attempted to have this entire section of the report deleted ? along with a conclusion that the administration misrepresented the intelligence when it warned of a risk that Mr. Hussein could give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups. They said Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney never used the word ?intent? and were merely trying to suggest that Iraq ?could? do those terrible things.

It?s hard to imagine that anyone drew that distinction after hearing Mr. Bush declare that ?Saddam Hussein would like nothing more than to use a terrorist network to attack and to kill and leave no fingerprints behind.? Or when he said: ?Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX nerve gas or someday a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.?

The Senate report shows that the intelligence Mr. Bush had did not support those statements ? or Mr. Rumsfeld?s that ?every month that goes by, his W.M.D. programs are progressing, and he moves closer to his goal of possessing the capability to strike our population, and our allies, and hold them hostage to blackmail.?

Claims by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld that Iraq had longstanding ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups also were false, and the Senate committee?s report shows that the two men knew it, or should have.

We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq. But when the president withholds vital information from the public ? or leads them to believe things that he knows are not true ? to justify the invasion of another country, that is bad enough.

*** Such a huge cost of life for all involved in a war that didn't need to be fought.

[PJack]

Bruce,

did you write that? If you are quoting it pls include the source.

Nothing new there, really. the level of mistakes by this admin could be criminal if they werent heads of state................... for a much much smaller less powerful country................... who was not western........... or who threatened to disrupt Oil supply lines.

[Sakura71]

The Truth About the War

N.Y. Times, 6 June 08

... the source, right at the beginning. New York Times, 6/6/08

[zeusbheld]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

What repercussions will there be?

my fantasy is that any politician anywhere who lies to start a war should get sent to the front lines, as at the rank of private, for the duration of the war. oh, and soldiers on both sides will know exactly who he is (and he will be clearly marked, preferably with a bullseye back and front. bet a tenner the back one gets hit first almost every time).

it'll never happen, but i can dream.

[PJack]

The Truth About the War

N.Y. Times, 6 June 08

... the source, right at the beginning. New York Times, 6/6/08

yes. I am sorry I missed it in my speed read.

mea culpa.

thanks for pointing it out.

[zeusbheld]

This info, ideas and such have been available for several years, did you just discover this now??

Hmmmm

Thanks for reporting old news.....

difference being that for years people have had the gut feeling that Bush and Cheney used intel they knew was false, whereas recently a senate report concluded the same. presumably senate reports, while likely to have a partisan slant, hold to a more rigorous standard of research and accuracy than the average internet forum.

[vbroker]

This info, ideas and such have been available for several years, did you just discover this now??

Hmmmm

Thanks for reporting old news.....

I guess you missed HBO's colossal financial failure "Recount." I didn't bother either and I'm a Nielsen viewer. Talk about old and fallacious news. Idiots....

difference being that for years people have had the gut feeling that Bush and Cheney used intel they knew was false, whereas recently a senate report concluded the same. presumably senate reports, while likely to have a partisan slant, hold to a more rigorous standard of research and accuracy than the average internet forum.

No....LIBERALS have all sorts of feelings that change to suit their agenda. Every major global intelligence agency (Russian, French, British, Israeli, etc.) and most major news organizations (including the Treason Times) all agreed then Hussein had or was developing the means to deliver WMD. Couple that with what transpired on 11 September, this country's POSTURE CHANGE from passive/defensive to aggressive/offensive as regards international terrorism, Islamic extremism and you have where we are today. Accuracy standard? Leaving facts out can make as inaccurate as falsehoods. Partisan slant? Naaaaaaaahhh there was no partisan slant. :shock:

Since the psychotic left desires nothing more than the U.S. to go down the shitter in white hot flames we can't expect them to ever understand the posture change as described above. Nor do I care if they do.

Yeah...thanks for a Times "opinion" editorial rehashing the same old same old. We all know who you'll be voting for come November. If you bother to vote, that is.

[zeusbheld]

This info, ideas and such have been available for several years, did you just discover this now??

Hmmmm

Thanks for reporting old news.....

I guess you didn't see HBO's colossal financial failure "Recount." I didn't bother either and I'm a Nielsen viewer. Talk about old and fallacious news. Idiots....

strangely, you call *HBO* idiots, all the while pretending you know something you don't, and offering up an incredibly stupid opinion of their business. tsk, tsk.

um... HBO don't sell ad space, they don't care about your Nielsen box. also, you're aware it's a movie and NOT a "news" show or even a documentary, aren't you? guess not. a hint: those guys, those famous people in the poster... they're actors. no really, they're just PRETENDING to be the people involved in the election, in order to make a movie about it!!!! no really, i **** you not!!!! that's what actors DO!!!!!!

here's the deal: it's like gym membership---the idea is to convince people to feel like there are enough programs on HBO they ought to watch to get them to subscribe. this is done with a couple of types of programming:

a) winning prizes. this is the purpose of shows like 'the sopranos', 'deadwood' etc.

controversy. if people feel like edgy, controversial stuff is on HBO, they might feel like they *ought* to be subscribing, as people will talk about it at the water cooler. ever notice that HBO-funded docs and made-for-TV movies are ALL on controversial topics? guess not. idea being if you agree with it, you'll want to tune in, and if you hate it, you'll want to tune in to shout down them that agree with it.

guess which kind of programming 'recount' is, can you figure that one out, ace? it's a tough question, like "who is the George Washington Bridge" named after. good luck with it.

yeah, they're idiots, that's why they've stayed at the top of subscription TV since, oh i don't know, they started (which i *think* was some time in the 70s, but i'm not going to look it up). too bad they haven't put you in charge, then they'd make some REAL money. :roll:

short version: don't call someone *else* an idiot when you're in the middle of saying something that makes you look stoooopid. it only makes things worse.

difference being that for years people have had the gut feeling that Bush and Cheney used intel they knew was false, whereas recently a senate report concluded the same. presumably senate reports, while likely to have a partisan slant, hold to a more rigorous standard of research and accuracy than the average internet forum.

No....LIBERALS

so let me get this straight. you're making a distinction that LIBERALS are not people? did you fail grade school biology?

have all sorts of feelings that change to suit their agenda. Every major global intelligence agency (Russian, French, British, Israeli, etc.) and most major news organizations (including the Treason Times) all agreed then Saddam had or was developing the means to deliver WMD.

as usual, fiery rhetoric and absolutely nothing in the way of substance to back it up. where are these reports (which, by the way, were NOT available to the public at the time)? got any links to ANY facts, let alone actual primary sources, or is all this pulled out of your ass as usual?

Couple that with what transpired on 11 September and this country's POSTURE CHANGE from passive/defensive to aggressive/offensive as regards international terrorism and Islamic extremism and you have where we are today.

well i'd call it more a climate of blind fear and lashing out than aggressive/offensive. blind stupidity rather than strategy, but that's just semantics isn't it.

Accuracy standard? Leaving facts out can make as inaccurate as falsehoods. Partisan slant? Naaaaaaaahhh there was no partisan slant. :shock:

if their accuracy standard is as amazing as your reading ability... ouch. you do realize i was insinuating that Senate Committee reports, including this one... thus insinuating that maybe, just maybe Senate reports may reflect senate membership. do you get it yet? or is flying low STILL over your head?

speaking of partisan slants, how do you ever fit through a doorway when you're leaning so far to the right tall the time?

Since the psychotic left desires the U.S. to go down the shitter in white hot flames we can't expect them to ever understand the posture change as described above. Nor do I care if they do.

interesting, so you're basically accusing anyone (including Americans) who disagrees with you of a) being part of the "psychotic left" and b.) wanting the US to gown the shitter in white hot flames.

not only subjective as hell, but you seem to be working on catching Hannibal Lecter in the psychotic department. difference being, he's imaginary and not nearly as bitter.

[eagle]

war ? what war ?

[GAV]

This info, ideas and such have been available for several years, did you just discover this now??

Hmmmm

Thanks for reporting old news.....

difference being that for years people have had the gut feeling that Bush and Cheney used intel they knew was false, whereas recently a senate report concluded the same. presumably senate reports, while likely to have a partisan slant, hold to a more rigorous standard of research and accuracy than the average internet forum.

Would this be the same Senate that allowed Bush to go to war and finish what his Daddy did'nt, a decade before. So we know they are telling the "TRUTH" lol. I am amazed and spechless that the American public, firstly let this man STEAL the Presidency and then let him take America to war in Iraq for the 2nd time. The man comes across in the press as a Bumbling Fool. So how does he get away with it................I can think of one reason, but feel it is better left un said !!!

[eagle]

comfortably numb or financially . no guns on the streets but people aren't happy and are aware ,change better some soon, we got enough to worry about with the weather

[CiaranM]

Since the psychotic left desires nothing more than the U.S. to go down the shitter in white hot flames

well they must be getting their desires fulfilled now .... and all done by a psychotic right wing neo con fascist administration !!!!

good work bush and cheney .... f**king knobs !!

[haiku_newyork]

www.zeitgeistmovie.com

[farang_subson]

I'd say Bush has done an excellent job of leading the U.S. down the shitter in white flames with very little liberal input.

Just today...the Dow drops 3% , oil pops $10, and unemployment hits levels not seen in years. Billions (trillions?) of $$$ leaving the country permanently to fund the war, while Bush thumbs his nose at those who urge a more serious approach to alternative energy and global warming.

Hopefully, Obama can help regain some respect for the U.S. internationally. The Thais I know definitely seem excited by the prospect.

[zeusbheld]

I'd say Bush has done an excellent job of leading the U.S. down the shitter in white flames with very little liberal input.

don't forget that these alleged conservatives have been profligate spenders and increased government size and power. only the extremely stupid or the extremely stubborn fail to recognize that the Bush administration is a trainwreck whether viewed from a 'liberal' or 'conservative' viewpoint.

Just today...the Dow drops 3% , oil pops $10, and unemployment hits levels not seen in years. Billions (trillions?) of $$$ leaving the country permanently to fund the war, while Bush thumbs his nose at those who urge a more serious approach to alternative energy and global warming.

Hopefully, Obama can help regain some respect for the U.S. internationally. The Thais I know definitely seem excited by the prospect.

i think ANYONE who isn't part of the Bush administration can help regain some respect for the US internationally. things really ARE that bad.

[zeusbheld]

www.zeitgeistmovie.com

www.conspiracybullshitforabsolutemorons.com.

you'll like that site even better.

[zeusbheld]

This info, ideas and such have been available for several years, did you just discover this now??

Hmmmm

Thanks for reporting old news.....

difference being that for years people have had the gut feeling that Bush and Cheney used intel they knew was false, whereas recently a senate report concluded the same. presumably senate reports, while likely to have a partisan slant, hold to a more rigorous standard of research and accuracy than the average internet forum.

Would this be the same Senate that allowed Bush to go to war and finish what his Daddy did'nt, a decade before. So we know they are telling the "TRUTH" lol. I am amazed and spechless that the American public, firstly let this man STEAL the Presidency and then let him take America to war in Iraq for the 2nd time. The man comes across in the press as a Bumbling Fool. So how does he get away with it................I can think of one reason, but feel it is better left un said !!!

actually, no, not the same senate. for one thing it has a higher percentage of Dems, so that might mean at least some of them are out to get Bush. much of the senate that allowed Bush to go to war have already been run out of the beltway.

however, as i stated, Senate committees are bound to have a partisan slant. i haven't read the report, don't know if i trust it.

on the other hand, i'm not sure if i care. i mean, why SHOULD i care if bush, cheney and rummy lied or were just morons?

a) the outcome is the same, we got into a war that made us less safe and sucked up valuable resources and ended lives needlessly

we could have and should have known better at the time, but the call to invade Iraq preyed on post 9/11 histeria.