I have no idea why Bush lied. I would not be surprised if Bush does not consider what he did as lying or misleading. If I had to guess why Bush did what he did, I think Bush did not care about the details on the PR campaign for war, after he made his decision. thus, Bush cares more about his resoluteness of his decision making ability versus speaking truthfully.
BTW, debating the why is just silly. Only Bush and his inner circle know the whys. Now if your primary reason for this thread was to debate the whys, this thread will be largely a waste of everyone's time.
No, Bush didn't lie, he's too incompetent to have done so. Instead, what happened was that some of the people he hired to advise him/propose policies to him formed a 'cabal', and in turn intentionally choked off information/opinions/different POV from him to make sure that he gets to see only 'selective' intelligence, thereby making his decision based on the information he had at hand. The more plausible explanation, however, is to blame God..errr...Cheney.
Read Michael Ruppert's book "Crossing the Rubicon" CROSSING THE RUBICON: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert Voted onlinereviewofbooks.com Non-fiction Book of the Year (2004) — Political bestsellers of 2004 as seen on C-SPAN: Amazon.com's Top 5 list “Crossing the Rubicon” is the second largest selling book about the attacks of September 11th after the official Kean Commission report. link
No 18.00% Yes, He Lied/He Cherry-picked Intelligence (combined) 82.00% I think we can safely say the legacy is being written correctly.
I believe the the lies weren't general. When Bush made general statements like Iraq had WMD's, I think he was genuinely saying what he believed to be true. But with specifics such as Iraq was six month away from a nuke there was a lie there, or in the attempted coverup that follows. I had previously stated there were three attempts, but in the end there were four shots at a cover up. This story shows on that I had forgotton about. The final attempt refers to a report that wasn't even out at the time of Bush's original statement. So it is clear that there were one or moe lies told here. Why would he do it? We can only guess. My belief is that it was in order to sell the war. He wanted to go to war because he believed that Saddam was a bad guy, he wanted revenge for the plot from Saddam to kill George Sr. His trusted advisors told him it was a good idea, and laid out how it would help stabilize oil resources, give a great place to start a democratic democracy theory etc. But people wouldn't go along with an invasion and occupation for those reasons. So he hyped WMD, and the nuclear angle. There is also the fib Bush told about having found WMD's in Iraq.
It's enormously difficult to "prove" a negative, but I am fascinated by the level of misinformation that contributes to the "Lied/Cherry-Picked" arguement. Batman, thank you for your thorough explanation. While you may have articulated these reasons in various places before, I've never seen you put them all together in quite the same way. It's eye-opening, some of it eye-popping, reading. If I may take your post as a means of answering vwiggin's question: I'm going to jump around a bit A few days ago I posted a old poll from the WaPo from September 13, 2001, that shows that 79% of americans thought that saddam hussein was involved in the atrocities of 9/11. Think about that. Just two days after the attacks (and the opinions likely were gathered even earlier than that) nearly 4 our of 5 americans believed Saddam was involved. I don't have access to Lexis/Nexis, but at this point I believe Bush had only spoken directly to the country once, the night of the attacks, and he did not mention Saddam. A year later, in the fall of 2002, just before Bush addressed the UN and as the "rush to war" began it's 7 month sprint, that number stood at 72%. a year after that, in the fall of 2003, after 5 months of war, it was 69%. So after 12 months of Virtually every time Bush was asked why we had to go to war he said 9/11 the percentage of people who believed it actually dropped 10 points. Your statement that Consequently, a vast majority of the country erroneously believed Iraq was complicit in 9/11 simply cannot be supported by the facts. In fact, the exact opposite is true: a vast majority of the country believed Iraq was complicit in 9/11 before Bush ever opened his mouth. Both the robb-Silbermann and SSCI reports say Bush did not manipulate intelligence, and both noted that congress had access to all relevant intelligence prior to voting to authorize the use of force. But your arguement is that Bush had other sources of information than the NIE. True, and these were captured in the PDB, or President's Daily Brief. The probelm is, the PDB tended to be even more alarmist than the NIE was. Once again, examine the implications. Bush was given daily briefings that were more alarmist than an NIE report that formed the basis for congress authorization to invade. That intelligence may or may not have been correct, but, once again, the facts do not support your conclusion that [Bush] absolutely had reason to have very serious doubts that [Iraq was] a threat. I'm not sure how you draw this conclusion. What had Bush done prior in the first 18 months of his presidency that fits your definition of having been dishonest and shady on so much already? I say first 18 months, since he began to make his case in September 2002. As to Hans Blix, Mr. Blix believed North korea had been disarmed. He also said he expected US troops to find WMD stockpiles that he'd been denied access to. He was wrong on Both accounts, so I'm unsure why you place such faith in his judgement. The afghan invasion started October 7, less than a month after 9/11. Not much of a holiday from criticism for a president that had been in office less than a year who was trying to guide the country through the worst attack on US soil in our nations history. The irony here of course is that GWI really was a war about oil. Not that there's anything wrong with that- oil is a crucial commodity for the world economy. But the larger issue is whether Bush went to war to enrich himself and cheney's friends at haliburton. This is a charge that's impossible to prove, but which has become an article of faith for many on the left. I believe it arises from the same mindset that suggests republicans don't care about people, they just care about business, and therefore they are incapable of any undertaking that is noble, honest, and just. there must be an ulterior motive, and greed is the most likely. the goeringesque arguement that Rove wanted to shield Bush from criticism in an election year is even more fanciful. democrats criticized Bush for "rushing to war" and promising easy victory. If those charges are true, Bush expected the war to over by summer- Mission Accomplished was on May 2, 2003. The election wasn't for another 18 months. If he needed it, Bush had the very instructive lesson of his father, who won a war in March of '91 and lost an election the next year, to guide him. If the mission had indeed been accomplished so quickly, the focus would have quickly shifted back to the economy, Bush's insane SS plan and other domestic issues, which would have played to democratic advantage. My purpose here is not to call you out directly Batman, merely to highlight how innacuraies, rooted in preconceived notions of Bush and republicans that have nothing to do with the WOT, Iraq, or 9/11, create the false impression that Bush lied. I think not.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Basso. This thread has so far been a constructive exchange of ideas. I hope this keeps up.
To those of you who initially supported the war but now oppose it or have regrets about it, I have a question for you. Had the war been going more smoothly*, would you have cared whether Bush lied**? *Some possible scenarios and outcomes (any combination) include: - much smaller US troop casualties, say less than 500 - significantly lower gas price in US as a result of the war, say $1.05/gal - a new sector of US economy is on the rise, i.e., massive rebuilding of Iraq through US Congress approved contract$$ which any American is eligible to apply - somehow the new Iraqi Government managed to pass a referendum to let US have permanent military base(s) in their country - after suffering crushing defeat and one-sided heavy casualties, Iraqis come to the conclusion that resistance is futile. Not only that, they even agree to actively participate in a new US military campaign against the next member on the Axis of Evils, aka Iran - sensing Christianity is the religion to be reckoned with, majority of the Iraqis convert to Christians. **The facts are established that Iraq had no WMDs prior to this War and no connections to the 9/11 attacks on US. The only issue is whether Bush intentionally misled the Congress, the American public, and the world, or he himself was duped by his associates but has refused to admit his own mistakes.
I knew basso wanted to get into painful debates of the whys. Republican Talking Point. Robb-Silbermann looked into coercion, albeit poorly, and not manipulation.
Word on the street is that they are waiting for Rove to finish writing the conclusion so that they will know what to shoot for.
