# Did Bush lie to justify invading Iraq for bad reasons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368 "2008-07-13T22:31:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/21 "2008-07-14T02:51:49Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] Done many threads on this very subject over a period of years. Bottom line: If you’re determined not to see it, you won’t. [/QUOTE] Proof is unequivocal, is it not? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/22 "2008-07-14T02:55:30Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Is there any _proof_ that Bush lied? Or is this all just supposition? [/QUOTE] Oh my yes. Plenty of evidence for that. Read [The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder](http://www.amazon.com/Prosecution-George-W-Bush-Murder/dp/159315481X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216003832&sr=8-1) by Vincent Bugliosi. The premise is, as the title suggests, prosecuting Bush for murder. There are many questions whether such a thing is doable but the case laid against Bush in the book is overwhelming. Long story short there is abundant proof Bush lied about this. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/23 "2008-07-14T02:59:17Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Proof is unequivocal, is it not? [/QUOTE] No, not even in court. As I said, if you’re determined not to see it, you won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/24 "2008-07-14T03:05:16Z")
On the other hand, given that same so-called ‘proof’, couldn’t one just as easily (and with just as much validity) claim that if one is determined _to_ see it, one will? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/25 "2008-07-14T03:07:11Z")
[False Pretenses](http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/) > [@](#): > > President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses. > > On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war. * * * **ElvisL1ves** , If you’ve got something to say about non-coalition casualties, fucking say it. Getting all nitpicky when someone brings up American and allied deaths contributes nothing here. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/26 "2008-07-14T03:07:40Z")
**SA** , not all doubt is reasonable, is it? **squink** , I did say it. Got a problem with it? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/27 "2008-07-14T03:28:30Z")
**Squink** , your cite seems to me to boil down to nothing more than: Bush said Iraq had WMDs; none were found, therefore Bush lied. Yes, no? **Elvis** , apart from moral considerations, do you favor the death penalty? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/28 "2008-07-14T03:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] **squink** , I did say it. Got a problem with it? [/QUOTE] Well, I do like to see posts that actually _add_ to a discussion, but if you want to toss insults around, have at it. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/29 "2008-07-14T03:54:42Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] **Squink** , your cite seems to me to boil down to nothing more than: Bush said Iraq had WMDs; none were found, therefore Bush lied. Yes, no? [/QUOTE] No. What it says is that the Bush admin made unequivocal and positive statements on topics about which there was, to the administration’s knowledge, a great deal of uncertainty. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/30 "2008-07-14T04:48:07Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] No. What it says is that the Bush admin made unequivocal and positive statements on topics about which there was, to the administration’s knowledge, a great deal of uncertainty. [/QUOTE] And you know this how? I saw nothing in that cite but unsupported allegations and statements by administration officals based on the evidence they had at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/31 "2008-07-14T05:36:38Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] And you know this how? I saw nothing in that cite but unsupported allegations and statements by administration officals based on the evidence they had at that time. [/QUOTE] I didn’t say I knew anything. You purported to summarise Squink’s cite and asked if your summary was accurate. Your summary was grossly inaccurate. I pointed this out. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/32 "2008-07-14T06:43:19Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] No. What it says is that the Bush admin made unequivocal and positive statements on topics about which there was, to the administration’s knowledge, a great deal of uncertainty. [/QUOTE] This is not directed to you, per say, **Princhester** , so please don’t take it personally (seriously), but this is getting old. There was uncertainty. Big fucking deal! There were also, I’m sure pros AND cons for acting militarily. This is true of ANY military action. Sheeze does anyone think we just sent troops to the Pacific in WWII, to Europe twice, to Korea, to Vietnam, to the Gulf War without examining the facts, looking at options and weighing pros and cons? Come on, people, grow up. This evaluation is done. It is an inexact science. Sometimes we get it wrong, like we did this time. But an administration has the responsibility to figure out what it thinks is the best course of action. Next, it falls to them to rally the troops, so to speak, get the country—and the world behind them. Because, once they know action is going to take place, it behooves us, as a nation to have as many people on board as possible. In order to do that, it is incumbent upon them to put the most attractive face on the action possible.Is this news to some people? Seriously. Every President has done the exact same thing. Bush got it wrong, particularly what to do after the initial fighting was over. Kennedy got Vietnam wrong. It happens. It will happen again. But this idea that the administration has the responsibility to air all the pros and cons of military action and take a vote on it is as ridiculous as it is naive. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/33 "2008-07-14T06:51:14Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] … Sometimes we get it wrong, like we did this time… [/QUOTE] Let it be known that nominations for Understatement of the Year, 2008, are effectively closed. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/34 "2008-07-14T07:06:32Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Let it be known that nominations for Understatement of the Year, 2008, are effectively closed. [/QUOTE] Finally, I won something. I never win anything. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/35 "2008-07-14T07:24:39Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] I didn’t say I knew anything. You purported to summarise Squink’s cite and asked if your summary was accurate. Your summary was grossly inaccurate. I pointed this out. [/QUOTE] What you said was: _“No. What it says is that the Bush admin made unequivocal and positive statements on topics about which there was, to the administration’s knowledge, a great deal of uncertainty.”_ Now, I see all sorts of allegations in that cite, but I don’t see one claiming to know what the administrations knowledge was, and/or how much uncertainty existed. I therefore concluded you must have knowledge of this yourself. Since you evidently don’t, perhaps you can point to the place in the cited information where it can be unequivocally illustrated that the administration knowingly made positive statements of fact while experiencing at the same time a great deal of uncertainty? The fact of the matter is, no one knows what Bush’s thoughts were, what his actual motivations were, what he knew or didn’t know, and what he attempted to accomplish by his public statements, but Bush himself. There is no proof that Bush lied. There is only circumstantial evidence, which is willingly contrued by his detractors as proof that he deliberately lied about Iraqi WMDs. This meme is largely accepted as incontrovertible fact around here and it simply isn’t so. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/36 "2008-07-14T07:57:50Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] There was uncertainty. Big fucking deal! [/QUOTE] You miss the point. The allegation is that the Bush admin misled about the extent of certainty. The article in question suggests it did. Nobody here is suggesting that it is, per se, inappropriate for a government to make decisions in the absence of certainty. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > Now, I see all sorts of allegations in that cite, but I don’t see one claiming to know what the administrations knowledge was, and/or how much uncertainty existed. I therefore concluded you must have knowledge of this yourself. That article: > [@](#): > > In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney’s assertions went well beyond his agency’s assessments at the time. > [@](#): > > In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.” > [@](#): > > But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. > [@](#): > > Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement “probably is a hoax.” > [@](#): > > One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named “Curveball,” whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. Almost the _entire thrust_ of the article is that there was great uncertainty, and information to that effect was available to the admin. I know you don’t believe the article. You may also say there is no evidence that the Bush admin had any idea what its intelligence agencies knew or thought concerning the very topics upon which the admin was pontificating (and if so we can at least agree on something: the admin is or was a bunch of total incompetents). But regardless of what you believe or disbelieve, your characterisation of what the article is saying was a gross mischaracterisation. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/37 "2008-07-14T08:43:05Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] … The allegation is that the Bush admin misled about the extent of certainty. … Almost the _entire thrust_ of the article is that there was great uncertainty, and information to that effect was available to the admin. … But regardless of what you believe or disbelieve, your characterisation of what the article is saying was a gross mischaracterisation. [/QUOTE] Evidence meet faith. Faith meet evidence. It’s the old story of the love that can never be. Imagine how much more difficult it is to convince people that a President of such implacable integrity as Clinton lied, a task for Titans. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/38 "2008-07-14T08:43:42Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] You miss the point. The allegation is that the Bush admin misled about the extent of certainty. The article in question suggests it did. [/quote] I just spent the last thirty minutes composing a point by point assessment of the excerpts you quoted and how they may well not have told the whole story, and the hamsters just ate it. I will try to reconstruct it tomorrow…for now, I’m off to bed. [QUOTE=Princhester] But regardless of what you believe or disbelieve, your characterisation of what the article is saying was a gross mischaracterisation. [/QUOTE] Upon reflection, and in reading the linked article as opposed to the info quoted above, I have little choice but to agree with you that it was, and I hereby retract that erroneous characterization. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/39 "2008-07-14T10:20:21Z")
Since this seems to have turned into yet another wank-fest about the meaning of “lied,” and I take full blame for that, my title having summarized a point badly and baldly, I’d like to try to return to my original point (mostly available to those of you who had been following the Tony Snow with fiendish closeness or those of you who followed the link in the OP) which was this: \*\*Fuji \*\* disputed my contention that Bush rationalized aggressive war “in a misguided attempt to restore national pride and other imperialistic reasons” as “a highly contentious one with regard to Dubya’s regime.” I felt that this was a mild, even fairly neutral, assertion on my part, and was surprised that anyone would characterize my reasons for Bush’s invasion of Irag as “highly contentious,” and so invited him here to discuss it–but we seem to have gotten off-track (my bad, again), partly because Fuji hasn’t shown up yet and partly because I very sloppily summarized what this debate was supposed to be about. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368/40 "2008-07-14T10:55:22Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] **squink, linty** , it’s sophistry to list only US casualties or even “Coalition of the Willing” casualties. Each of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths should matter just as much. The millions of lives ruined there matter as much as the thousands more ruined here. [/QUOTE] That’s not sophistry. That’s insensitivity. And I did mention the Iraqi deaths. > [@](#): > > I think Bush’s stupidity and his short-sightedness and his lies have cost us the lives of 3,000+ good men **and thousands more innocent civilians** who should be alive today. Given the context of the debate and my post, I would have thought it obvious that this implied innocent _Iraqi_ civilians. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bush-lie-to-justify-invading-iraq-for-bad-reasons/456368.md?page=3)