# Did former president Bush manufacture a reason to invade Iraq or was he misled by bad intelligence he thought was correct? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 7, 2024, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912 "2024-09-07T16:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/21 "2024-09-07T20:59:05Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The colonization of Iraq and the entire region? That’s hillarious. It was part of the [Project for a New American Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century), very influential among the Bush Administration. We were supposed to permanently control Iraq, destroy its culture & history and turn it into what they envision as a free market paradise. So they destroyed museums, forbade the puppet government from rebuilding (not Free Market, you know), slashed their regulations, built permanent military and government installations for our intended permanent rule, and tried to force their libertarian fantasies on them. Which created a lot of death and suffering and not much else. And derailed their plans for future expansion one Iraq was turned into an extension of the US. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/22 "2024-09-07T21:08:40Z")
> [@GailForce](#): > > Fool me once, you’ve fooled me once, but fool me twice and you’ve fooled me twice. I think that’s how it goes. “There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again. " George W. Bush – Nashville, Tennessee, September 17, 2002.” ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/23 "2024-09-07T21:15:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It was part of the [Project for a New American Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century), very influential among the Bush Administration. Even if we grant that the PNAC drove Bush’s invasion if Iraq, nothing in the Wiki article backs up your claim that this was about the “colonization” of Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/24 "2024-09-07T22:01:53Z")
According\* to my friend who was in Iraq in 2003 as a UN weapons inspector, nobody on the ground thought that Iraq had a WMD program or stockpiles. They did destroy some old chemical weapons (that the Iraqis found, “Here, _you_ deal with this.”) There’s a photo of my friend and colleagues suited up with IIRC an old mustard shell while some Iraqi guys stand around with no PPE smoking cigarettes. There was one scare where they thought a pesticide production facility was making nerve agent precursors, but further tests proved that a false alarm. \*Now you have this second-hand from some rando on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/25 "2024-09-08T00:46:38Z")
Whether they believed it or not, they went in there with absolutely no for what they would do afterwards. Like the dog that catches the car. ---
**Author:** ![DETXL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/detxl/32/19366_2.png) [@DETXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DETXL)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/26 "2024-09-08T03:39:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The intelligence community delivered bad intelligence, yes. But they did that because the Bush administration told them to deliver that bad intelligence. When you tell people what you want to hear, you can’t blame them for misinforming you. Did they? From page 273 of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence _Report on the US Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq_: > The Committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to do so. When asked whether analysts were pressured in any way to alter their assessments or make their judgments conform with Administration policies on Iraq’s WMD programs, not a single analyst answered “yes.” Most analysts simply answered, “no” or “never,” but some provided more extensive responses. This is expanded on in the Robb-Silberman report (pages 50-51): > These are errors—serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments. …and pages 189-190: > However, there is no doubt that analysts operated in an environment shaped by intense policymaker interest in Iraq. Moreover, that analysis was shaped—and distorted—by the widely shared (and not unreasonable) assumption, based on his past conduct and non-cooperation with the United Nations, that Saddam retained WMD stockpiles and programs. This strongly-held assumption contributed to a climate in which the Intelligence Community was too willing to accept dubious information as providing confirmation of that assumption. Neither analysts nor users were sufficiently open to being told that affirmative, specific evidence to support the assumption was, at best, uncertain in content or reliability. The followup (“Phase II”) report from the Senate Select Committee, which is largely a collection of individual opinions, makes the case that the Bush Administration was selective in the intelligence they chose to socialize—instances where dissenting information on, say, Iraq attempting to acquire equipment to reconstitute their nuclear program was not publicized. And, further, that Administration officials overstated the strength or severity of the assessments that they had been given. But that’s different from “the Bush administration told them to deliver that bad intelligence,” which the bipartisan Select Committee and the Robb-Silberman commission at least did not find credible. Has there been a subsequent re-evaluation of that conclusion? ---
**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:** [September 8, 2024, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/27 "2024-09-08T03:53:57Z")
ISTM the choice we have here is that the US intelligence services are colossally bad at their jobs or the administration at the time had a goal and was looking for backup to achieve that goal. So, which do you think is more likely? The CIA is criminally bad at their job or the administration wanted a result and got what they were looking for? And then, gave the second highest award in the country to the head of the CIA for, presumably, a job well done. Either the CIA fucked up or Bush & Co manufactured a casus belli to take us to war. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/28 "2024-09-08T04:24:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It was part of the [Project for a New American Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century), very influential among the Bush Administration. We were supposed to permanently control Iraq, destroy its culture & history and turn it into what they envision as a free market paradise. I came here to make a similar point, though PNAC goals went way beyond just Iraq. It’s important to know that no less than ten former PNAC members became part of the Bush administration, including senior officials like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. There’s an interesting and prescient comment in one of the key PNAC documents about the desirability of some major triggering event that would give the US justification for forcefully expanding its influence in critical areas like the Middle East. 9/11 provided precisely the trigger that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the others had sought. They wasted no time in using it to justify an expanded war that included Iraq. What Bush himself believed is almost irrelevant, though it’s pretty much certain that these henchmen eventually convinced him that Iraq was a threat. > [@Babale](#): > > Even if we grant that the PNAC drove Bush’s invasion if Iraq, nothing in the Wiki article backs up your claim that this was about the “colonization” of Iraq. “Colonization” may not be the right word, but expanding American control in the region and elsewhere was explicit in PNAC’s goals. The year before PNAC was founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, they had written a policy paper advocating “a more elevated vision of America’s international role”, and suggested that the United States’ should adopt a stance of “benevolent global hegemony.” These ideas were explicitly articulated in PNAC’s founding documents. The goal wasn’t colonialism, but economic and political domination where it benefited American interests. The organization might as well have been called “Project for a New American Imperialism”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/29 "2024-09-08T04:59:39Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I have no clue. It’s like the 98lb weakling trying to goad The Rock into a fight. More like the Rock beating the shit out of the 98 pound weakling and then afterwards claiming he only did it because the 98 pound weakling goaded him into the fight. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/30 "2024-09-08T05:12:12Z")
Here’s my take on the question. If Saddam had been actively working on WMD development, that would have been a justification for war. Bush and his administration claimed this was happening. Plenty of people at the time said that it was not happening. At the time, the Bush administration claimed it had access to better evidence than the doubters did. So we invaded Iraq. And we found that Saddam had not been actively working on WMD development. The people who said that he wasn’t were right. Bush and the people that said that he was were wrong. So the question to me is; what about that evidence Bush claimed he had? There obviously was no such evidence. My opinion is that Bush had a “gut feeling” about Saddam. But he lied and claimed he had evidence because he knew that asking the country to go to war because of his gut feeling wouldn’t have worked. Bush lied. And by lying, he started a war that killed over a hundred thousand people, including over four thousand American troops. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/31 "2024-09-08T05:54:25Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > People knew the excuses for war given by the W admin were bullshit right from the beginning. Example: WMDs? Oh, boy. Where? No, totally wrong. In the _beginning_- EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMD- the UN, the Mossad, MI5, CIA and Saddam even bragged about having them. So, Bush very properly threatened Saddam if he didnt let Blix and the UN back in to search for them. So Saddam did… _and Blix found nothing,_ much to everyone’s surprise. So _at that point,_ Bush and everyone knew Saddam didnt have any. But Bush invaded anyway. Later, they did find some, buried & rusted out in the desert, more of an ecological danger than as useful weapons. Those were the ones that the UN said were missing from their tallies. > [@Ruken](#): > > They did destroy some old chemical weapons (that the Iraqis found, “Here, _you_ deal with this.”) There’s a photo of my friend and colleagues suited up with IIRC an old mustard shell while some Iraqi guys stand around with no PPE smoking cigarettes. yep, those are the ones i just talked about. > [@GailForce](#): > > Plus, I’m really pissed about 9/11 now 9/11 was Afganistan, and yes, they most certainly trained the terrorists- in fact most of the free world was behind us when we went in there, we had a good reason. We had no reason to go into Iraq after Blix found nada. So, let us go over the three sandy wars- Kuwait- we were backed by the UN, and most of the free world. 9/11 Afghanistan- we were backed by most of the free world. Iraq- the world thought we were aggressive imperialist nutcases. Dont get them mixed up. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Bush lied. And by lying, he started a war that killed over a hundred thousand people, including over four thousand American troops. Yes, after Blix found nothing- Bush knew there were no WMD, so he lied and went in anyway. Bush was a war criminal for doing so. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/32 "2024-09-08T13:24:42Z")
But the Senate Intel Committee Reports effectively skirted the issue that I raised upthread – the Office of Special Plans. Instead, … > The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller twice alleged that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or its former head Douglas Feith may have engaged in unlawful activities, Phase II of the report “found nothing to substantiate that claim; nothing unlawful about the “alleged” rogue intelligence operation in the PCTEG , nothing unlawful about the Office of Special Plans, and nothing unlawful about the so-called failure to inform Congress of alleged intelligence activities.” [**SOURCE**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Report_on_Iraqi_WMD_Intelligence) This is a very different endpoint than asking directly whether we were knowingly lied into war. We were. Exonerating the Intelligence Committee ignores the point: they were cut out of the loop _by_ the Neocons and the Office of Special Plans. Feature, not bug. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/33 "2024-09-08T13:25:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > “Colonization” may not be the right word, but expanding American control in the region and elsewhere was explicit in PNAC’s goals. There is a vast gul between the United States colonizing the Middle East, and the United States taking an active role to protect its interests and the interests of the international order where the US is currently quite dominant (or at least was/seemed to be in the late 90s). > [@wolfpup](#): > > The year before PNAC was founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, they had written a policy paper advocating “a more elevated vision of America’s international role” If there is a spectrum of how involved in foreign affairs we think the US should be, with both peaceniks and America Firsters on one end saying we should just stay home, and people like the ones you quote here on the other hand, it seems to me that those of us who argue against Trump’s isolationism, who want to see America stand up for Taiwan or Ukraine, are probably closer to this camp than to Trump’s isolationism. > [@wolfpup](#): > > and suggested that the United States’ should adopt a stance of “benevolent global hegemony.” I’d certainly prefer it if Republicans argued that the US should be a diplomatic world leader while working closely with its allies, which is the stance the Democrats seem to take. But if the only two options for my opposition are hawks or America Firsters, I’ll take the hawks. At least I know they aren’t working for Putin. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/34 "2024-09-08T13:28:54Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Whether they believed it or not, they went in there with absolutely no for what they would do afterwards. Like the dog that catches the car. Assuming (yeah, there’s that word) you meant “absolutely no _idea_” or “_plan_” … Actually, they did have an idea about the aftermath. I distinctly remember driving to work one day and hearing an administration spokesbeing predicting that CotW\* forces would be greeted as liberators in the streets of Baghdad — he said there would be flowers — and Sadaam would be handed over to justice. Then the grateful populace would turn to the US for guidance in establishing a democracy. Why I didn’t drive off the road into a tree is one of those enduring mysteries. \* “Coalition of the Willing” (or intimidated) ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/35 "2024-09-08T22:50:14Z")
I seem to recall that Scott Ritter, a US Marine attached to the UN weapons inspection team, said there was no WMD program in Iraq, before the invasion. I know Ritter turned out to be a turd, but a turd can be right about his area of expertise. I’m just about to run to the airport, so apologies for the archived web page, but here’s a CNN article from 2002 [https://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/](https://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2024, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/36 "2024-09-08T23:39:24Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > “Colonization” may not be the right word, but expanding American control in the region and elsewhere was explicit in PNAC’s goals. The issue with this idea, that America went in for cheap oil is that- we never got any cheap oil. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/37 "2024-09-09T00:54:16Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The issue with this idea, that America went in for cheap oil is that- we never got any cheap oil. Well first of all, there’s no “issue” here as economic and political dominance in the region was an explicit goal of PNAC, whose members like Cheney and Rumsfeld were placed in senior roles throughout the Bush administration. Secondly, it was a strategic goal that went well beyond just oil. It was about American military dominance and economic self-interest. The economic self-interest was never about cheap oil for the American consumer, it was about profits for American corporations like Halliburton, of which Dick Cheney had been CEO. Halliburton had been making huge profits in Kuwait and Iraq for years, and received billions in preferential contracts in the run-up to and during and after the Iraq war. American contractors are estimated to have pulled in more than $138 billion from the second Iraq war alone. > **[Contractors reap $138B from Iraq war - CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/business/iraq-war-contractors/index.html)** > > Eight days after the invasion of Iraq on March 19 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy defence secretary and a leading proponent of the war, told a Congressional committee: "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction,... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2024, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/38 "2024-09-09T02:12:16Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Well first of all, there’s no “issue” here as economic and political dominance in the region was an explicit goal of PNAC, whose members like Cheney and Rumsfeld were placed in senior roles throughout the Bush administration. Sure, the goal of an Org. But the USA never got any dominance either. Halliburton did skim off some nice profits, sure, but the idea we went in there due to some orgs ideas of American Imperialism is interesting but unproven. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2024, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/39 "2024-09-09T02:21:49Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The issue with this idea, that America went in for cheap oil is that- we never got any cheap oil. Control over the oil _supply_ \<\> “cheap oil.” It bears mentioning. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2024, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912/40 "2024-09-09T02:22:20Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Control over the oil _supply_ \<\> “cheap oil.” Sure, but the USA didnt get that either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-former-president-bush-manufacture-a-reason-to-invade-iraq-or-was-he-misled-by-bad-intelligence-he-thought-was-correct/1006912.md?page=3)