Did Bush Admit to Lying about WMD in Iraq?

[rjung]

*Originally posted by RickJay *
Where are the calls for Bush’s resignation?

Well, I’m certainly no fan of GeeDubya, but I wouldn’t call for a resignation or an impeachment. Lying about WMDs, while lowly, craven, manipulative, and totally base – e.g., just what I’d expect from the guy – is not an impeachable offense. Better, instead, that men and women everywhere recognize George W. Bush for the lying scoundrel he is, vote him out of office, and mock his name as the biggest crook and scoundrel ever. In short, let him and his family name be dishonored for ten thousand years.

A more befitting punishment I cannot imagine.

[sailor]

This CNN page says it was a severe case of the US believing what they wanted to believe rather than thinking rationally.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/02/sprj.irq.wmd.hunt/index.html
The problem isn’t that the INC was dishonest, per se. What it is, is that they were willing to believe anything bad about Saddam Hussein that could help their cause of regime change," said Albright, the former U.N. inspector. “And I think the Pentagon, particularly the hard-liners, suspended their analytical judgment in order to adopt some of these points of view and information.”

Yes, I think a lot of people have suspended their critical thinking. The article pretty much says the US government still publicly says the WMD existed but it is becoming quite clear they most probably did not.

[galen]

*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**I like to hope not. **

Why? That’s like saying “I hope the Nazis aren’t antisemites.”

[AZCowboy]

sailor wrote:
Yes, I think a lot of people have suspended their critical thinking.

Apparently, there were numerous individuals in the intelligence community who continued to display rational critical analysis to the situation. Anyone who may have seen last night’s NightLine understands my point.

To me, it is just confirmation of what I termed neo-con groupthink. Anyone, even experts, who offered a different interpretation or analysis of the situation was immediately marginalized, since their “opinion” didn’t match the chickenhawks’ world view.

The apparent amount of influence by the INC is a prime example. Hardly any group could be considered more biased against Saddam’s Iraq - convenient to match the worldview of the neo-cons in power.

[elucidator]

I love the latest line, about how it wasn’t lying, just a matter of “emphasis”. Reminds me of Willy Nelson’s (Happy B’day, Willy!) line about being caught in bed with someone not your wife and saying “Who you gonna believe? Me, or your damn lying eyes!”

[London_Calling]

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
Iraqi looters got inside a nuclear research institute containing thousands of pounds of radioactive materials? :eek: Please tell me I read that wrong.

Forgive my misty-eyed sentimentality … this take me back to the days when I used to cite Scott Ritter on seemingly an hourly basis:

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr147e.htm
Ritter:When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection programme ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There’s no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated.

Even this, however, is not simple, because Iraq still had thousands of scientists who had been dedicated to this nuclear weaponisation effort. The scientists were organised in a very specific manner, with different sub-elements focused on different technologies of interest. Even though the physical infrastructure had been eliminated, the Iraqis chose to retain the organisational structure of the scientists. This means that Iraq has thousands of nuclear scientists - along with their knowledge and expertise - still organised in the same manner as when Iraq had a nuclear weapons programme and its infrastructure. Those scientists are today involved in legitimate tasks. These jobs aren’t illegal per se, but they do allow these scientists to work in fields similar to those in which they had worked where they were, in fact, carrying out a nuclear weapons programme.

There is concern, then, that the Iraqis might intend in the long run to re-establish or reconstitute a nuclear weapons programme. But this concern must be tempered by reality. That is not something that could happen overnight. For Iraq to reacquire nuclear weapons capability, they would have to build enrichment and weaponisation capabilities that would cost tens of billions of dollars. Nuclear weapons cannot be created in a basement or cave. They require modern industrial infrastructures that in turn require massive amounts of electricity and highly controlled technologies not readily available on the open market. "
You can relax and put the kettle on, Kimstu, yep, it’s as it’s always been, the WMD were a false pretext on which the empire acquired a crucial asset.

[system]

Doubts grow over Iraq ‘smoking gun’ The Financial Times
2 May 2003

Quoted in extenso as this is subscription based:

Saddam Hussein appears to have shut down or destroyed large parts of his unconventional weapons programmes before the war in Iraq, a senior Bush administration official who has been closely involved in the quest to purge Iraq of weapons of mass destruction said this week.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he would be “amazed if we found weapons-grade plutonium or uranium” and it was unlikely large volumes of biological or chemical material would be discovered. He suggested that the sanctions and UN inspections probably prompted Mr Hussein to dispose of much of his stockpile.

“The biological weapons stuff is easy to destroy,” he said, adding that chemical agents might have been dumped in the desert. The disclosure will fuel criticism in Britain - and particularly among Tony Blair’s backbenchers - about the failure to unearth a “smoking gun”. The prime minister made the need to find and destroy Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction the central justification for war.

President George W. Bush also repeatedly justified the use of force against Iraq by arguing that Mr Hussein’s deadly weapons could threaten its neighbours and fall into the hands of terrorists who might strike the US. The failure so far to find evidence of an Iraqi weapons programme has led to speculation that no such programme existed.

The article continues to note the development of expectations management in light of apparently reduced confidence.

However, the senior administration official insisted the US never expected to find a huge arsenal. He said the US was more concerned by Mr Hussein’s team of 1,000 scientists, whom he termed “nuclear mujahadeen”. These scientists, he argued, could have restarted Iraq’s weapons programme once the crisis passed. A primary concern was dual-use “factories and breweries” which could be converted into weapons plants but were allowed under UN sanctions.

I find the first sentence amusing.

[scm1001]

good link to long history of US lying to start wars. Plus ca change…
http://www.guerrillanews.com/intelligence/doc1785.html

[elucidator]

Good NYT editorial by Nicholas Kristoff on this subject:

Opinion | Missing In Action: Truth (Published 2003)

“Let’s fervently hope that tomorrow we find an Iraqi superdome filled with 500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 29,984 prohibited munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several dozen Scud missiles, gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, 18 mobile biological warfare factories, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to dispense anthrax, and proof of close ties with Al Qaeda. Those are the things that President Bush or his aides suggested Iraq might have, and I don’t want to believe that top administration officials tried to win support for the war with a campaign of wholesale deceit.”

I don’t want to believe it either, Nick. But I do. What is it now, a month since we’ve offered a quarter million dollars for someone to rat out one of the massive stocks of WMD’s…and still no takers?

[ElvisL1ves]

Bricker, since you addressed me directly, I’ll respond. You seem to insist on viewing every moral and political question in strictly legal terms. Anything that you can’t find a way to shoehorn into a structure that you’re comfortable addressing is simply declared an externality. You do need to recognize that the world is larger than the legal system, and so is morality and politics. What is right is not necessarily legal, and what is legal is not necessarily right, as you may have heard, and it would do you a great deal of good to step outside your narrow technician’s worldview and consider your broader responsibilities as a citizen of a democratic republic.

The question here isn’t the legality of Bush’s lying or of its meeting the standards of evidence that would be required in a legal court. Rather, it’s the morality and the statesmanship of his lying, and by extension the citizenry’s morality and statesmanship of accepting his lies while condemning another man’s. The standards of evidence are those that apply in the court of public opinion.

[rsa]

*Originally posted by elucidator *
Good NYT editorial by Nicholas Kristoff on this subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/06/opinion/06KRIS.html

Good and scary.

The NYT Op-Ed piece can be found here as well: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/06/nyt.kristof/

The envoy’s debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.

“It’s disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this for a year,” one insider said.

“The intelligence that our officials was given regarding W.M.D. was either defective or manipulated,” Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico noted. Another senator is even more blunt and, sadly, exactly right: “Intelligence was manipulated.”

[The_Ryan]

AZCowboy

Your logical contortion makes no sense, as I have not made the claim you ascribe to me.

Huh? So you believe that it has been proven that Iraq has WMD?

If so, then I’m not sure why you directed the comment as you did, as I cannot find that claim posted by Whack-a-Mole anywhere in this thread. Regardless, you now say, “I responded that such had been found.” So, presumably, “such” refers to “indications of creation”. Which is also a bit different than the “traces of WoMD” you originally stated. So be it. So I ask again, cite?

Here’s the quote I was responding to:

I don’t think you could ‘destroy’ WMD’s without some trace remaining short of nuking something.

I think that in that context, it’s reasonable to assume that “trace” means “indication of creation”. As for a cite, are you just being pedantic, or have you really not seen the myriad of reports from Iraq?

The Latest News from the UK and Around the World | Sky News

And that’s just today.

As to the second sentence, the part of the UN Charter is Chapter 1, Article 1, paragraphs 1, [etc]

That states that the purpose of the UN is to resolve conflicts peacefully. No obligation is incurred by this.

But you know, that is all beside my main point. In my response to your first post in this thread, I quoted three statements you made. I refuted all three.

What?!?
Let’s look at the instant replay:

The Ryan wrote:
Furthermore, for this invasion to be illegal, there would have to be a law which the US is bound which it did not follow

There was, it’s called the UN Charter, and UNSC Resolution 687. Both are afforded the legal status of treaties, incorporated by the US Constitution.

The Ryan wrote:
And finally, the UN itself agreed that Iraq violated its agreements.

Technically correct, but ironically, only as correct as Clinton’s definition of “is” - it all has to do with verb tense. The UNSC did not agree sufficient evidence had been provided to determine that Iraq was still in violation of its resolutions.

The Ryan wrote:
Whack-a-Mole: traces of WMD have been found.

Cite? And before you dig, I acknowledge that preliminary tests have indicated the presense of substances that might be used to create CW/BW weapons, but that not a single WoMD has been found. And certainly none of the “tons” and “stockpiles” Powell stressed in his presentation to the UNSC.

So here’s the summary:
Claim #1: you did not refute it, in fact by trying to find laws which the US violated, you implicitly accepted my claim.

Claim#2: you agreed that it was “technically” correct, then diverted attention to another issue.

Claim #3: You simply asked for a cite, without presenting any evidence of your own that my statement was false, and in fact stipulating that the core of my statement was correct.

You didn’t refute a single one of my statements.

[akrako1]

It’s a wonderful tactic: first, develope a theory that accomplishes your goals (oil, democracy, whatever), then make the facts match your theory - even if you have to fabricate them. If that doesn’t work, gradually change your theory to match the facts - make sure to make it as vague as possible. The admin. is using the same ‘proving a negative’ logic that doomed Iraq as a defence for their policy.

http://www.sundayherald.com/33628

**
The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had no weapons of mass destruction.
Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted that they would be ‘amazed’ if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq. **

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email&refer=top_world_news&sid=ahJS35XsmXGg

**
London, May 1 (Bloomberg) – The U.S. and U.K. went to war against Iraq because of the Middle East country’s oil reserves, an adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
Sir Jonathan Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises Blair’s government on ecological issues, said the prospect of winning access to Iraqi oil was a very large factor'' in the allies' decision to attack Iraq in March. I don’t think the war would have happened if Iraq didn’t have the second-largest oil reserves in the world,’’ Porritt said in a Sky News television interview. **

http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=86

**
The former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq and card-carrying Republican is barnstorming America with a blunt message: George W. Bush’s war on Iraq was waged on a “bodyguard of lies.”
“We need regime change, and we need it quick,” Ritter told a gathering of peace activists in New Jersey on Sunday. “George W. Bush does not have the right to represent the American people, if he told a lie. And he told a whopper.”
That whopper, said Ritter, was claiming that the US government had evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction and that was why Iraq must be invaded. The facts, he said, are that “the inspections worked. The United Nations did disarm Iraq.” **

The History Of The Administration’s Lies About WMD - compiled and referenced by Rense.com:
The History Of The Administration's Lies About WMD
BBC NEWS | Americas | Blix: 'US undermined inspectors'

**
American officials tried to discredit the work of inspectors in Iraq to further their own case for war, the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has charged.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Blix said American officials leaked suggestions that inspectors had deliberately suppressed information to the media in an attempt to undermine their work in Iraq. **

Blix attacks US war intelligence

**
Blix said he found it “very, very disturbing” that US intelligence failed to identify as fakes documents suggesting Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, the West African nation which is the third-largest producer of mined uranium.
In December, the US state department used the information to support its case that Iraq was lying about its weapons programs. But on March 7, Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the security council that the documents were forgeries. **

[AZCowboy]

Oh, good heavens, The Ryan, you’re really reaching now, huh?

Let’s jump right to the crux of your argument.

The Ryan wrote:

Whack-a-Mole wrote:
I don’t think you could ‘destroy’ WMD’s without some trace remaining short of nuking something.

I think that in that context, it’s reasonable to assume that “trace” means “indication of creation”.

What an odd interpretation. Wouldn’t a reaonable person assume “trace” in that sentence refers to “indication of destruction”? Or is that me being pedantic?

Speaking of being pedantic, you now offer a cite to support your statement that “traces of WMD have been found”.

But your cite says no such thing. Your three sentence cite says that a seized trailer (in Northern Iraq, no less) “appears to be” a CW/BW mobile laboratory. An unamed US defense official says “preliminary” review reveals this “could possibly be” part of such a facility. The third sentence starts off, “if confirmed”, and then clarifies that it “would be” the "first hard evidence" found. Thanks. Your cite proves your original statement was unsupported and without merit.

You suggest that the US is under no obligation to the UN Charter (despite the unrefuted point that the UN Charter is a treaty of the US, given supreme law status by the Consitution), but provide no reason why.

On your original three statements, you claim I didn’t refute any of them. Somehow, claiming a violation of a treaty given status by the Constitution, in your mind, implies acceptance that the invasion was legal? What convoluted logic did you use this time?

You suggest I diverted attention on your second point, when the issue I raised was the only logical implication of your statement. Or are you honestly saying that the UN’s agreement of Iraqi violations of UN resolutions prior to 2003 has something to do with the justification for invasion?

On your third statement you suggest that presence of substances that might be used to create CW/BW is stipulating that traces of WMD have been found. Your own cite can’t even support that.

Is it possible that English isn’t your first language? You seem to have real trouble understanding verb tenses.

I’m done here, with you. You can have the last word. Have fun.

[The_Ryan]

*Originally posted by AZCowboy *
Your cite proves your original statement was unsupported and without merit.

I don’t see how.

You suggest that the US is under no obligation to the UN Charter

No, I simply stated that a particular clause creates no obligation. Some of the UN charter are of a proscriptive nature, creating obligations. Other parts are of a descriptive nature, creating no obligations. This part is of the latter category.

On your original three statements, you claim I didn’t refute any of them. Somehow, claiming a violation of a treaty given status by the Constitution, in your mind, implies acceptance that the invasion was legal? What convoluted logic did you use this time?

You’re the one that seems to have a problem understanding English. I said “Furthermore, for this invasion to be illegal, there would have to be a law which the US is bound which it did not follow”.
By trying to show that there is such a law, you implicitly accept my statement that such a law is necessary. I never said that you implied acceptance that the invasion was legal. I said that you implied acceptance of the idea that for the invasion to be illegal, there must be a law that the US violated.

You suggest I diverted attention on your second point, when the issue I raised was the only logical implication of your statement.

What? If I accuse someone of murder, is the only logical implication that I believe that person to be currently engaged in committing a murder? When I say that Iraq violated UN resolutions, it’s because I believe that Iraq violated UN resolutions. If I want to say that Iraq is currently violating UN resolutions, then I’ll say that Iraq is currently violating UN resoltions. Please don’t put words in my mouth, and then crow about managing to “refute” me.

Or are you honestly saying that the UN’s agreement of Iraqi violations of UN resolutions prior to 2003 has something to do with the justification for invasion?

Yes, I am.

On your third statement you suggest that presence of substances that might be used to create CW/BW is stipulating that traces of WMD have been found.

Trace: “Evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something; a vestige.” This lab is an indication of WMD. Not proof, but indication.

And I see you completely avoided addressing my pointing out that you did not in fact refute any of my points, and are nowrefusing to defend your statements. Is it really that hard to admit that you were wrong?

[OliverH]

*Originally posted by The Ryan *
**

No, I simply stated that a particular clause creates no obligation. Some of the UN charter are of a proscriptive nature, creating obligations. Other parts are of a descriptive nature, creating no obligations. This part is of the latter category.
**

Which this part? There’s passages all over the charter that the US violated, including the fundamental principles. The obligation to use peaceful means is most certainly a proscriptive requirement.

**
You’re the one that seems to have a problem understanding English. I said “Furthermore, for this invasion to be illegal, there would have to be a law which the US is bound which it did not follow”.
By trying to show that there is such a law, you implicitly accept my statement that such a law is necessary. I never said that you implied acceptance that the invasion was legal. I said that you implied acceptance of the idea that for the invasion to be illegal, there must be a law that the US violated**

And you were shown that there is.

**
Trace: “Evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something; a vestige.” This lab is an indication of WMD. Not proof, but indication. **

No, it isn’t, since it is no indication for an Iraqi attempt to MANUFACTURE or otherwise ACQUIRE them, or for them hactually POSSESSING WMDs. More, you completely ignore the original poster’s point that your source does NOT confirm an indication, but merely supports the POSSIBILITY, pending FURTHER CONFIRMATION that such an indication might exist. They made such statements time and again.

[AHunter3]

galen:

:
Originally posted by AHunter3

I like to hope not.

Why? That’s like saying “I hope the Nazis aren’t antisemites.”

The phrase to which it was a response was:

did Bush mislead the world…?

So my response was essentially “Well, I like to hope that the world was not fooled.”
BTW, incidentally–:

http://www.sundayherald.com/33628

(OT for the above exchange but on-topic for the thread)

[Beagle]

Mobile bioweapons lab, the sequel.

[quote]
WASHINGTON, May 7 — The Pentagon said Wednesday that it believes it has discovered a mobile biological weapons lab in Iraq but said that what were apparently thorough efforts to sanitize the facility mean that more detailed analysis is needed. Earlier, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the Army’s 5th Corps. said the reason Saddam Hussein didn’t use biological or chemical weapons against invading forces may be that they were buried too well to retrieve before the advance of U.S.-led forces.

[elucidator]

Pathetic.

Am I the only one who remembers that this bullshit festival started about nukes? Remember? Saddam had nukes, or was going to get nukes any minute now, which he was going to Fed-Ex to New York or hand off to whats-his-names, you know, that guy we used to be chasing.

The the nuke thing segued into a WMD thing. Sure, you remember: “massive stockpiles”, “500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin”, sure, you guys remember. We went to war because of the desperate and immediate danger posed by all this terrible stuff. Course, we also claimed that he’s had it for about ten years at least and never used it on us but was going to! any minute now!

Would it not be equally plausible for a mobile lab to be equipped for defensive chem/bio reasons? Isn’t that, in fact, more plausible, since such a lab might very well need to be mobile, in order to be available? After all, Iraq not only used chemical weapons, it had chemical weapons used on themselves by Iran. I would be very surprised if they didn’t have some kind of mobile detection labs. You can damn sure betcha we do!

And have I got this Wallace guy right? Saddam buried his shit so deep he couldn’t get it in time because of the surprise attack by America? The one we built up for what,…nine months? Not enough lead time? With a straight face, they spoon out this bullshit. And Some People lap it up.

(This wasn’t the guy who painted his face blue and mooned the English, was it?)

[Beagle]

I guess I should have added a :dubious:. Personally, I’m glad Saddam is gone so we can end the sanctions and move on to invading France.

Jumping Joseph on a cracker, elucidator, I have no idea whether this will turn out to be another false alarm or just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve already closed the case and sent the evidence to the jury.

It did seem topical, another WMD sighting. Sure, they’ve all been media hype so far. But, that’s another reason to post the links, to ridicule the various media outlets when they screw up. The DoD has been careful about these things by comparison.