Did Bush lie to justify invading Iraq for bad reasons?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Linty Fresh

Given the context of the debate and my post, I would have thought it obvious that this implied innocent Iraqi civilians.

Yeah but if I heard the above and knew nothing of the subject what you said would imply to me a few thousand more on top of the 3,000+ (actually 4,000+) soldiers. That is a far cry from the 100,000+ actual number. The way you phrased it seems to minimize and hand wave away the full horror of it all.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@Whack-a-Mole

hand wave away the full horror of it all.

“These aren’t the dead bodies you’re looking for… Move along.”

[Whack-a-Mole]

@beowulff

Hasn’t this been debated to death?
It all comes down to what you define “lie” as. If cherry-picking intelligence to support your cause, and ignoring valid arguments against you is “lying”, then clearly the answer is yes, if not the answer is probably no.

Nah…it was straight out lying.

BERLIN – The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein’s suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

<snip>

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball’s information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball’s accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

<snip>

Curveball was the chief source of inaccurate prewar U.S. accusations that Baghdad had biological weapons, a commission appointed by Bush reported this year.

<snip>

The senior BND officer who supervised Curveball’s case said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball’s claims as a justification for war.

“We were shocked,” the official said. “Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven… It was not hard intelligence.”

In a telephone interview, Powell said that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and his top deputies personally assured him before his U.N. speech that U.S. intelligence on the mobile labs was “solid.” Since then, Powell said, the case “has totally blown up in our faces.”

SOURCE: LA Times: November 20, 2005

[Shodan]

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

… that his administration misled Congress, the public, and the international community repeatedly and deliberately in regard to Iraqi belligerence (and preparedness to wage an offensive war) during the build-up to the war…

I know (as Starving Artist has mentioned) that this is one of the most sacred of cows on the SDMB, but…

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

Cite.

So making assertions that are supported by the evidence is not lying.

I am afraid the entertainment value of watching y’all spin the “if Bush said it, it was a lie, but not if Hilary/Albright/Gore/everyone else said it” is more or less exhausted, so anyone else feels the need to try to establish this by repetition, feel free, but maybe as a board we can move on.

Regards,
Shodan

[Whack-a-Mole]

Dang…forgot the Downing Street Memo too (bolding mine):

The most controversial paragraph is a report of a recent visit to Washington by head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove (known in official terminology as ‘C’):

*C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But **the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy**. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. *

SOURCE: Downing Street memo - Wikipedia

[BrainGlutton]

@Squink

It’s over 4,000 now.
http://icasualties.org/oif/

And more than a million Iraqis. How come, when people bring up the cost of the war in lives, it’s always tacitly assumed American lives are the ones that matter most?!

[Squink]

@BrainGlutton

How come, when people bring up the cost of the war in lives, it’s always tacitly assumed American lives are the ones that matter most?!

How come, when people post in order to correct an incorrect figure, others always feel compelled to bring up the absence of a kitchen sink? Sure, the kitchen sink is an important piece of hardware, but, in this case, it wasn’t the bit in contention.

[RTFirefly]

@BrainGlutton

And more than a million Iraqis. How come, when people bring up the cost of the war in lives, it’s always tacitly assumed American lives are the ones that matter most?!

Brown people aren’t really people, but more like the images in a video game.

At least, that’s how a lot of Americans seem to view it.

[John_Mace]

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

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.

You have not demonstrated that “national pride” needed to be restored, nor have you given any evidence that Bush was trying to restore said pride. As for “imperialistic reasons”, you need to define that. The US has a long standing policy of meddling in the Middle East, so if this is “imperialism”, then Bush might be said to have gone further in that meddling, but it’s a matter of degree not a matter of kind. In that case, you might as well just postulate that the US = Nazi Germany for the entire post-WWII era.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Shodan

So making assertions that are supported by the evidence is not lying.

Kinda curious what this evidence was that supported a conclusion that Iraq was developing WMD? Sure looks to me like there was none. Read my post just above yours…there goes the bio weapon side out the window.

The whole buying uranium from Niger was shown to be bogus well before Bush and his administration used it to support the notion Hussein was building nukes.

So where was this compelling evidence?

[elucidator]

What are you talking? The very fact that there was no evidence is *conclusive * proof that he was hiding something!

[Shodan]

@Whack-a-Mole

Kinda curious what this evidence was that supported a conclusion that Iraq was developing WMD? Sure looks to me like there was none…

You might want to read the cite. Or not, as you prefer.

So where was this compelling evidence?

Perhaps you could ask the chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, who produced the report with the conclusions I have mentioned.

Of course, he is the same one who said -

There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.

so you will need to do some serious spinning to keep Senator Rockefeller from being impeached and removed from office, prosecuted for murder, etc., etc.

Again.

Regards,
Shodan

[magellan01]

@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.

Nobody here is suggesting that it is, per se, inappropriate for a government to make decisions in the absence 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.

Uncertainty. Great uncertainty. My point remains.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Shodan

You might want to read the cite. Or not, as you prefer.
Perhaps you could ask the chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, who produced the report with the conclusions I have mentioned.

I did read your cite. There you have a reporter who pulls quotes from the report saying the intelligence substantiated the Administration’s conclusions. Which would seem particularly odd since the conclusions the report gets is, “The Committee’s report cites several conclusions in which the Administration’s public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence.” (cite…bolding theirs)

I have not read the report since it is a 172 page PDF that is not searchable (seriously…why they could not post it as actual text is beyond me).

Of course, he is the same one who said - so you will need to do some serious spinning to keep Senator Rockefeller from being impeached and removed from office, prosecuted for murder, etc., etc.

If congress was being given info that had been spun by the Bush administration it is small wonder they came to the wrong conclusions.

[Shodan]

@Whack-a-Mole

I did read your cite. There you have a reporter who pulls quotes from the report saying the intelligence substantiated the Administration’s conclusions. Which would seem particularly odd since the conclusions the report gets is, “The Committee’s report cites several conclusions in which the Administration’s public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence.” (cite…bolding theirs)

You’re correct - it is odd that the report should say

statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

and

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

:shrugs:

Like I said, it takes a certain amount of spin, or gall, for someone who said that Iraq was an imminent threat, and that the US couldn’t afford to wait for better intelligence, to then turn around after the fact and accuse people of lying when they act on that intelligence.

Regards,
Shodan

[Digital_Stimulus]

@Whack-a-Mole

Kinda curious what this evidence was that supported a conclusion that Iraq was developing WMD?

I saw some news show a couple weeks back (Frontline, perhaps?) that brought up something I hadn’t heard before. Namely, that after Iraq I, when Cheney was SecDef, it was discovered that Iraq was approximately 18 months from getting “the Bomb”. At the time, not even a hint of that was showing up on intelligence reports; according to the show, it left an indelible impression on Cheney and played into the belief during Iraq II that nuclear weapons were under development. Sort of a “you can’t get fooled again” situation.

Doesn’t really change the circumstances or arguments being made here, but I’d never heard it before and thought it might be of interest.

[Voyager]

@Shodan

You’re correct - it is odd that the report should say and*:shrugs:*

Like I said, it takes a certain amount of spin, or gall, for someone who said that Iraq was an imminent threat, and that the US couldn’t afford to wait for better intelligence, to then turn around after the fact and accuse people of lying when they act on that intelligence.

Regards,
Shodan

There is no doubt that there was intelligence information supporting all this stuff. The question is whether the authors of the report got to see the contradictory intelligence information. For instance, in the case of the aluminum tubes, was the CIA’s conclusion that the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear program filtered out? Given this Administration’s proclivity to edit out any conclusions it doesn’t like, even on things it cares about less, I suspect it did.

In any case, the only intelligence that counts is that available just before the war began. This intelligence included the complete inability of the UN inspectors, with good access, to find any of the supposed WMDs. Any president who was going to war primarily to protect us and the region from them would pause at this point. A president whose mind was made up, and was going to war for other reasons would act exactly like Bush.

It’s odd how you people only like to mention findings from the year before the war, not the evidence at the time of the war.

[Starving_Artist]

Didn’t Saddam Hussein himself state during his captivity that he deliberately set about attempting to convince the world that he either had or was developing WMD so as to enhance his power in the region?

I would imagine that if you have the head of a soverign nation, with all the resources he had at hand, it would be pretty easy to create a very convincing image of WMD possession or development.

Trouble is, he did too good a job of it.

Bush felt - and I agreed and still agree - that there existed a very likely synergy between Iraq and not only Al-Qaeda but any of a number of other terrorist groups looking to attack the U.S. in the wake of 9/11, that the risk Iraq under Hussein posed was simply too great to allow.

Given Hussein’s history as an enemy of the U.S., his use of WMD on his own people and on the battlefield with Iran, and his providing safe haven for other well-known and sought-after terrorists, Bush’s assessment that Hussein’s Iraq posed an unacceptable threat was not unreasonable.

ETA: Voyager, wars take a while to get underway. If one continuously holds off pending the latest amoung thousands of bits of intelligence, one would never go to war. Hussein presented an overall picture of Iraq that made it too much of a threat to be allowed to continue. End of story.

[jshore]

@Voyager

In any case, the only intelligence that counts is that available just before the war began. This intelligence included the complete inability of the UN inspectors, with good access, to find any of the supposed WMDs.

See for example here.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the thing I bring up again and again in these sorts of threads is this: If the Administration really believed their stated concerns about there being WMDs that would be dangerous if they got into the hands of terrorists, why did they take a situation where, according to their own intelligence analyses, the weapons were unlikely to get into terrorist hands and turn it into a situation where the weapons were very likely to get into terrorist hands with essentially no safeguards whatsoever to prevent this from happening? I don’t know if this is a sign of dishonesty or incompetence but if it is incompetence, it is incompetence on a scale that is beyond my ability to comprehend.

[John_Mace]

Starving Artist: Unfortunately, the story is continuing even as we post. But I’m not going to debate the Iraq War all over again, as no one is going to change his mind at this point. I’ll simply state that Iraq was of little or no threat to the US, there was no reason to think that SH and al-Qaeda would link up*, and we had Iraq more effectively contained than any other rogue nation on the face of the earth. There was simply no need for this war.

And anyone who can’t at least say “oops” when confronted with the fact that we allowed al Qaeda into Iraq isn’t looking at this objectively. I can maybe see how some people could have supported the war before we went in, but after the debacle it turned out to be, it’s clear as day that it was a mistake.

*not to mention that plenty of other states, like Pakistan, are actually more likely to link up or turn a blind eye to al Qaeda-- and are doing so today. Iraq was far down the list of countries that would harbor al Qaeda.