# Where is the evidence that Bush "lied"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983 "2009-09-21T19:39:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/81 "2009-09-22T21:03:20Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Let’s not forget the Dodgy Dossier. Support for the war was crumbling worldwide as America couldn’t provide any actual proof that Iraq was building WMDs. Suddenly Blair appeared at a press conference, did his steely jaw-clenching thing as he talked about the onerous responsibilities he was under protecting Britain from the threat of Iraq and terrorism in general and announced to the world new information about Saddam’s WMD programs, information that he announced as “new, comprehensive, and compelling”. The information was released to the press and zipped around the world’s news cycles. Then a couple of days later some interepid journalist googled a couple of the claims and found the whole dossier had been lifted from a 1991 American student thesis on Saddam’s early 90s possible WMD options. > > It later transpired that Blair’s poitical office had googled this crap up and sent it to the British version of the CIA who somehow managed to turn it into a supposedly fact-based dossier. Now I’m sure Blair didn’t technically lie in whatever he said publicly about the dossier but I’d love to know why his office dug the crap up and how it ended up becoming an intelligence report. Luckily Britain is a democracy and in democracies we have mechanisms to require accountability from our leaders. I’m sure an inquiry will be starting anytime now. [Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq | Iraq | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/iraq-inquiry-tony-blair-bush) You can not forget the Downing Street memeos. Bush and Blair decided to go into Iraq. Bush told them he would fix the intelligence to justify it. They knew Saddam was not a threat. They sent Cheney over to baby sit the CIA until he got the info just right. He downgraded every bit of info that did not fit and forced agents to back the official view. It was corruption of the intelligence agencies plus lying to the world. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/82 "2009-09-22T21:20:27Z")
When it was determined by his own government that Iraq did not in fact pose the threat Bush lied to you about, what was the reaction? Apologize, withdraw, and make reparations? No, Bush made a funny movie about looking for Iraq’s alleged weapons in the Oval Office then proceeded to pretend the invasion was justified even though all the reasons given justifying it were false. Why would anyone assume he was honest in light of that? As for proof, well I think big: Bush said invading Iraq was justified. It was not. Therefore Bush was lying when he said it was. I’ve read enough about how he and his keepers wanted no truck with evidence that didn’t support policy to think he’s an honest lifeform. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/83 "2009-09-22T21:35:59Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Out of curiosity did we have hard evidence that North Korea, Pakistan… Look it up yourself, just don’t claim that you know what Iran is up to when you don’t. Loose talk like that is the sort of shit that got us into Iraq. ---
**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 22, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/84 "2009-09-22T22:10:59Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Look it up yourself, just don’t claim that you know what Iran is up to when you don’t. > Loose talk like that is the sort of shit that got us into Iraq. Bullshit. I did try looking this up but unfortunately didn’t find info on the web on what we knew and when we knew it as regards nukes for these countries. Found nothing one way or another. That said the US never wanted anyone else to have The Bomb (except maybe Great Britain). The US has always opposed proliferation. Not sure if we “knew” these other countries were getting nukes that we wouldn’t have been all over them with sanctions or whatever. As for Iraq there is a BIG difference! We were already in Iraq. We had already stomped them several years earlier. We were already all over their country and poking our noses in wherever we could. We had no-fly zones. We had reports from all these inspectors that nothing was there (WMD-wise). All of that was ignored. We knew they were mostly harmless…went in anyway. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/85 "2009-09-22T22:17:46Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > We established some rules. We did, that is to say, we, the Americans. We established the rule that aggressive war was a crime against humanity. We not only established the rule, we hanged some people for breaking the rule. > > An aggressive war is a war that is not based upon self-defense. Self defense includes an imminent threat of attack. Had we discovered the Japanese aircraft carriers steaming towards an attack position, we could have attacked, under that proviso. > > Them’s the rules. We broke the rules. Its not a question of rock-solid intelligence, we weren’t even close. There is no evidence whatsoever that Saddam intended to attack us, and that is what is required. Not a suggestion, not a guideline, required. > > Compared to the crime of aggressive war, compared to the squandering of untold thousands of innocent lives, the petty parsing of a word like “liar” is like arguing whether or not to charge Jeffrey Dahmer with health code violations of improper food storage. To be sure, the US stance is that the UN Resolution\* authorized the legal use of force. Iraq breached that resolution. Therefore, this was not an aggressive war. It’s a stretch argument, but that’s the stance anyways. \*Either the recent 2003 resolution, or really, the “open-ended” resolution from Gulf War I. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/86 "2009-09-22T22:30:43Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I did try looking this up but unfortunately didn’t find info on the web on what we knew and when we knew it as regards nukes for these countries. Found nothing one way or another. The president tried looking up Iraq’s nuclear program too, but it was _hard_. Did you know that it’s hard being president? It’s a hard job. Anyway, he couldn’t find out the facts either, so he went with what he _believed_ instead, and told the rest of us that his beliefs were cold, hard facts. The result is hundreds of thousands dead, and hundreds of billions wasted for _nothing_. Facts can be _very hard_ to determine, but that is no excuse whatsoever for choosing to believe whatever the hell you want to believe, and certainly no excuse for lying to people and telling them that your beliefs are the stone cold truth. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/87 "2009-09-22T22:30:44Z")
Random thought: Why bother trying to figure out if Bush lied? The Iraq invasion was clearly unconstitutional and illegal (no congressional vote) and he should be jailed for that alone, not to mention breaking international peace treaties (torture). ---
**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 22, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/88 "2009-09-22T22:35:43Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > The president tried looking up Iraq’s nuclear program too, but it was _hard_. Did you know that it’s hard being president? It’s a hard job. Anyway, he couldn’t find out the facts either, so he went with what he _believed_ instead, and told the rest of us that his beliefs were cold, hard facts. > The result is hundreds of thousands dead, and hundreds of billions wasted for _nothing_. > Facts can be _very hard_ to determine, but that is no excuse whatsoever for choosing to believe whatever the hell you want to believe, and certainly no excuse for lying to people and telling them that your beliefs are the stone cold truth. Except Bush had the facts…or near enough. His intel was pretty good. People were telling him there was nothing there. He ignored it. He wanted a different answer. He wanted to go to war. He took us to war. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/89 "2009-09-22T22:50:29Z")
The UN weapons inspectors had been there for 6 years until Clinton pulled them out. Then they went back and Bush pulled them out again - no justification in either case except to attack (Clinton to distract from Lewinsky, Bush for the acquisition). Just google Scott Ritter. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/90 "2009-09-22T22:58:41Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Random thought: > > Why bother trying to figure out if Bush lied? The Iraq invasion was clearly unconstitutional and illegal (no congressional vote) and he should be jailed for that alone, not to mention breaking international peace treaties (torture). Congress voted for, and approved the 2003 War in Iraq. see “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” It was not unconstitutional. Or, I don’t see what your reasoning is. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/91 "2009-09-22T23:00:55Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Except Bush had the facts…or near enough. His intel was pretty good. People were telling him there was nothing there. He ignored it. He wanted a different answer. He wanted to go to war. He took us to war. Fine. Do you want to go to war with Iran? If not, why do you make claims about the threat of their nuclear program that are not based on facts? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/92 "2009-09-22T23:03:56Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > The president tried looking up Iraq’s nuclear program too, but it was _hard_. Did you know that it’s hard being president? It’s a hard job. Anyway, he couldn’t find out the facts either, so he went with what he _believed_ instead, and told the rest of us that his beliefs were cold, hard facts. > The result is hundreds of thousands dead, and hundreds of billions wasted for _nothing_. > Facts can be _very hard_ to determine, but that is no excuse whatsoever for choosing to believe whatever the hell you want to believe, and certainly no excuse for lying to people and telling them that your beliefs are the stone cold truth. He had 6 years of still on going UNSCOM inspections, and 6 years of reports from the inspectors, and technology in place to verify their findings. It’s beyond naive to think Bush didn’t have the materials at hand - the rest of the world somehow managed to form a pretty accurate view. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/93 "2009-09-22T23:21:53Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > He had 6 years of still on going UNSCOM inspections, and 6 years of reports from the inspectors, and technology in place to verify their findings. It’s beyond naive to think Bush didn’t have the materials at hand - the rest of the world somehow managed to form a pretty accurate view. This is how/why the inspectors left it 1998. During those 6 years UNSCOM did destroy a lot of chemical weapons. That’s a fact and it’s undeniable. But, Iraq also failed to disclose information about its programs and repeatedly interfered with the inspectors job. The job wasn’t complete. This was a violation under the 1991 resolution that ended the first Iraq war. Also: 1998 - Congress states Iraq committed a material and unacceptable breach of UN resolutions. They urged the President to bring Iraq into compliance. 1998 - Congress stated, “It should be the policy of the US to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam from power in Iraq and promote the emergence of a Democratic government to replace that regime.” This was in response to Iraq’s kicking out Nuclear Weapons Inspectors. 1998 - Iraq quit cooperating with UNSCOM. Operation Desert Fox ensued in which numerous (100’s) Iraq targets were destroyed with missile attacks. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/94 "2009-09-22T23:40:51Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > It’s beyond naive to think Bush didn’t have the materials at hand - the rest of the world somehow managed to form a pretty accurate view. No no no, EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMD’s. 😉 That’s a lie that’s taken on almost religious truthiness here in the US. If it’s not true, then maybe our boys really did die for nothing, and all that. The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate, so it _must_ be true. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/95 "2009-09-23T00:14:28Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > No no no, EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMD’s. 😉 > That’s a lie that’s taken on almost religious truthiness here in the US. > If it’s not true, then maybe our boys really did die for nothing, and all that. > The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate, so it _must_ be true. I didn’t start this thread for nothing. I want to be educated. To be honest, I heard that the whole world thought that Saddam had WMDs. Educate me. Show me where other countries were telling us that he had nothing. That he was holding his dick in his hand and that was his only weapon. It just doesn’t jive with my memory, but I am open to being corrected. No snark. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/96 "2009-09-23T00:30:04Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I didn’t start this thread for nothing. I want to be educated. To be honest, I heard that the whole world thought that Saddam had WMDs. Educate me. I gotta ask. Did you make up your mind about the invasion without this “education”? Did you simply rely on what you “heard” and decide that was enough to garner your support for the invasion? Where was this concern for evidence back in 2003? Why didn’t you do this thread back when it could have made an ounce of difference? > [@jtgain](#): > > Show me where other countries were telling us that he had nothing. That he was holding his dick in his hand and that was his only weapon. Again, you seem to misunderstand the entire point. Nobody KNEW he had nothing, just like nobody KNEW he had WMD’s. The entire point is that Bush sold the invasion as if we did know, as if we were sure, Saddam was a imminent threat. It seems to me you’ve shifted the burden from justifying the deaths and dollars that come with an invasion, to proving that countries knew we shouldn’t invade. That’s not realistic in the least. And, just to help, [some German intelligence officers certainly thought it was certainly overstated.](http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/German_BND_claims_U.S._exaggerated_Iraq_WMD_claims). ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/97 "2009-09-23T00:36:47Z")
The cheese eating surrender monkeys provoked congress into eating ‘Freedom Fries’ with their unwillingness to go along with the ‘everyone believes’ meme: [U.S. Allies Were Not Persuaded By U.S. Assertions on Iraq WMD](http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/usallieswmd.html) > [@](#): > > June 9, 2003 > French intelligence services did not come up with the same alarming assessment of Iraq and WMD as did the Britain and the United States. "According to secret agents at the DGSE, Saddam’s Iraq does not represent any kind of nuclear threat at this time…It [the French assessment] contradicts the CIA’s analysis…"5 French spies said that the Iraqi nuclear threat claimed by the United States was a “phony threat.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/98 "2009-09-23T00:46:45Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Except Bush had the facts…or near enough. His intel was pretty good. People were telling him there was nothing there. He ignored it. I’m sorry, this is just nonsense. Again, I’m not defending his decision, but the CIA signed off on a National Intelligence Estimate that said, in part: > [@](#): > > We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.) > > We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq’s WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad’s vigorous denial and deception efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq’s WMD programs. > > Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. This is all part of the Tenet “slam dunk” comment. Of course, these judgments were also spectacularly wrong. But as to your claim that Bush was being told there was nothing there: you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/99 "2009-09-23T00:50:35Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > This is how/why the inspectors left it 1998. During those 6 years UNSCOM did destroy a lot of chemical weapons. That’s a fact and it’s undeniable. > > But, Iraq also failed to disclose information about its programs and repeatedly interfered with the inspectors job. The job wasn’t complete. This was a violation under the 1991 resolution that ended the first Iraq war. Saddam was set up by Clinton. It’s not exactly news. As Scott Ritter says, Clinton politicised that which should not have been ( the inspection process) because it served his own ends, both personal and political. Lest we forget Desert Fox began the day before the evidential hearing in relation to Monika Lewinski and ended the day after the hearing ended. He took the inspectors out of Iraq for that. Some cold shit from Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983/100 "2009-09-23T00:51:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > My recollection about the aluminum tubes was that they were alleged to be super-dooper high tech aluminum tubes only suitable for producing nukes. Of course, this was when the goalposts were set at “nuke”. And they were anodized, which Bushco said was what was needed for enriching uranium, but that is exactly backwards. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-evidence-that-bush-lied/510983.md?page=6)