Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet June 27, 2003 "The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons." – George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati. There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every day. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," it lists the names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour of duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthial J. Smith, age 21, of Allendale, South Carolina. The young, late O.J. Smith was almost certainly named after the legendary running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero was charged for a double-murder. Now his namesake has died in far-off Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19, "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field. The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth. What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody: LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... 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." – President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati. FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie." LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." – President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address. FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly." LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." – Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press." FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." – CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush. FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence 180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested. LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." – President Bush, Oct. 7. FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes. LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." – President Bush, Oct. 7. FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"? LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." – President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address. FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war. LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." – Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council. FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks – if they existed – were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder. LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press. FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise. LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." – President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003. FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts – including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week – have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves. So, months after the war, we are once again where we started – with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which O.J. Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty." Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound more like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes." On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But – I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.'" And neither did we. Christopher Scheer is the managing editor of AlterNet.org. He can be reached at feedback@alternet.org
Numbers 4 and 5, if true, sort of poke a hole in tree's latest thoery, namely that theadministration's claim of an Al-Queada/Iraq connection is an anti-war myth...
Let's look at #6. Now the article provides the facts that Iraq's UAVs have a range of 300 miles and that Iraq is 6,000 miles from the US. With only these two pieces of information, it makes the inference that Iraq could in fact not attck the US with said UAVs. This must mean that Iraq does not have access to boats which could get within 300 miles of the US, and that it would be impossible for Iraq to get one of these UAVs into Mexico. What fantastic journalism. Couldn't you come up with something a little less biased, maybe from the DNC?
I guess it is also arguable that if grandma had nuts she'd be grandpa... but that seems to be a large if...
If it is from AlterNet, then it must be true. There is no more credible source. Everything must be true. Gawd!! What have I been doing with my life for the past year!!! I must have joined the wrong team. Thank you, No Worries, for turning my life around before it was too late. Oh sh*t, it is too late...
I question nothing. I also take seriously nothing. At least, nothing here. I'm sorry, was I actually supposed to take this seriously? I thought this was a joke thread...
Well I assume that you're being the annhilist and suggesting that the article has no merit b/c it was written by AlterNet (who??). I don't know anything about AlterNet. And my head really hurts and I should in all honesty be studying... but what point in the article did you find to be untrue? I'm afraid that I have an embolism on the right side of my head (damn these no alcohol study nights), but from the sight that I have right now it looks as if the article just gives a timeline w/ some commentary too. Maybe you have some additional information that calls the commentary into question? Maybe you have IAEA officials living in your basement that have told you that those tubes were in fact for centrifuges, and not for all of Sadaam's rusty missiles (didn't the CIA conclude this? DoD?) Maybe you are still holding out hope that the evil trucks are for weapons manufacture? Our own biological weapons chief (whenever the program went officially dead) has said that they aren't appropriate for weapons manufacture. You have some intel treeman. Ohhh... I forgot, Cheney and Bush are great spooks. ROTFL
I'm not exactly sure at what point that I stopped taking the article seriously was. It may have been the word "AlterNet", it may have been the "Lie" about the boilogical weapons trailers. Most likely, it was something in between. Probably the paragraph that tried to tie OJ Simpson to the issue... Suffice it to say that I do not take this article seriously. It is just one more in a line of slander, inaccurate reporting, and just flat propagandizing "reports" that we have seen over the past few weeks. In my mind, of course... It is worthless as either an informative pieve or a debatable piece. I'm sure that you and others will, as you are predisposed, see it differently. You will probably see all sorts of "smoking guns" against Bush, probably find multiple reasons why the war was unjustified. That is your prerogative. Personally, I see another in a long line of bullsh*t stories that have nothing to build on, and that are created with no other purpose than to reverse a successful military campaign. That is what I see, and why I am not really interested. Dime a dozen.
Achebe, Here is a short bio on the author from their website: While it doesn't explicitly say, "I am a pinko Bush hater," it is possible to read between the lines. Also, I don't really understand your response to my first post.
Interesting bio on the author. However, the quotes from Bush are accurate and the refutations are accurate. Hey how about the Niger uranium claim that even the Bush Admin admits was false. Do you guys deny this, too?
glynch, First, the refutations were not all accurate, or at least not all very meaningful as I showed with my response to "Lie" #6. More importantly, here are some things not mentioned in the article: 1. Saddam Hussein killed about 50,000 Iraqis per annum that we know of. 2. Saddam Hussein was a destabalizing influence in the region. 3. The Baath regime sponsored terrorism. 4. Saddam provided no credible evidence that all of his NBC weapons were destroyed. Even if all of the statements were interpreted exactly as the article chooses to, there was plenty of justification to go to war against Saddam. The incerdible success of the war just increases the suppoort of most for the war. The anti-war side wouldn't let go when the war was ramping up, you wouldn't let go once the war had started, and now you won't let go now that the war is over. We did it. We were in the right. The world is now a better place. Get over it.
The question is not and never has been "were we justified in going to war in Iraq". The question has always been the reasons the Administration gave for the justification, which, with each passing day, are turning out to be questionable. Did the Administration think that American citizens would not support the war if their justification would have been "Saddam kills his own people. He is a threat to his neighbors in the region. Taking him out would make the world a better place"? Apparently not, so they massively played up the WMD card, which is turning out to be a dilemma for them. The question is this: Next time Junior goes after a country, will the American people believe his justification for sending young Americans into harms way? Or will they be skeptical of his reasoning?
Unsurprisingly, the critics of this articles are attacking the messenger (Christopher Scheer) and ignoring the substance. That is intellectually dishonest, admit it!!! Rumsfeld - "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. We are just not telling".
Yeah...you can contend with the refutations, I suppose, although only 1 or 2 of them are all that vulnerable...but why has not one single pro-war person addressed the quotes themselves? In particular tree, who has contended that the administration never tried to claim any sort of link between Iraq and Al Queada, and went out if it's way to tell other nations that there was no such link... This bash the messenger when you can't argue with the message is pretty weak. I haven't done it myself, to the best of my knowledge, but I do know that people I agree with have on occasssion, but this has far and away been much more of a pro-war strategy...the best still being when Bush Sr. criticized Bush Jr. ( I know, I know...it works for me) and pro-war people tried to claim that Bush Sr. was operating out of jealousy and trying to sabotage his son doing what he couldn't...that still cracks me up... And I still don't get Pinko Bush hater from the exerpt SM used...hey, maybe the guy is, but that quote sure as hell didn't suggest it. But even if he is, this is a pretty cut and dried argument...the quotes are from the admin, period. They have either been disproven, or yet to be proven accurate. Dispute that.
It is so easy to be a critic. What if you were the one responsible for protecting a nation? Intelligence is just information; it is hardly ever proof because it is usually gained tenuously. If you wait around for <b>proof</b> you might not avert catastrophe.
Formula for disaster. And giddy, you are forgetting, before the war...before the intel scandal...all kinds of diplomats and intel guys were resigning in protest...of what? Oh, yeah...the fact that the admin had had it's mind made up to go to war before the intel, and then made it clear that the only intel they were interested in was intel that backed up their war argument. So to now claim that it wasn't their fault, they just didn't have all the intel, or that reading intel is difficult misses the point; that was their choice. They are fully responsible.
How many quit? Two, three. Others besides Bush saw this intel; why was there no clamor then? Why did this come up now instead of right after the SU address? It's no formula for diaster, we kicked ass in Iraq and ousted a bloodthirsty, conniving dictator. I think we went to Iraq because it was the most available target <b>and</b> it deserved liberation. BTW, MacBeth, my remarks about "it's so easy..." were not directed at you personally.
This is true to much extent, but a little inaccurate considering MacBeth et al's position does say intervention was not justified. This latest controversy over whether the situation was properly represented to the people is just another way to attack the intervention itself. GreenVegan, 6200 is an exaggerated estimate, but considering Saddam averaged 50,000 dead Iraqis a year, still a good policy outcome overall.
