Bush Lied!!!!!

Well, this one sure has been resurfacing lately. Not that it ever really went away, it is just increasing in furvor due to the recent indictments which don't actually say anything about pre-war. But oh well, they don't report the news, they make it.

It is rather difficult, for me anyway, to pinpoint what exactly they mean by "Bush Lied". Here are the points that I can seem to make out, even if they really are incoherent because they're also false:

Bush's "lies":

1. Iraq was an imminent threat
2. Iraq had WMDs
3. Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda

I would say those make up the meat of the argument, although no doubt when people say "Bush lied" I'm sure they're not altogether sure of specifics and are simply spouting it, probably believing that Bush has lied every time his mouth opens. Now to address the points:

First, some general background reading:
Why We Are In Iraq
The Right War for the Right Reasons

1. Iraq was an imminent threat.

This one is the most perplexing. I point to an article by Stephen F. Hayes, from 2004, called "The Imminence Myth". As he points out, Bush did not claim that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat, quite the opposite, in fact:

In fact, the case for war was built largely on the opposite assumption: that waiting until Iraq presented an imminent threat was too risky. The president himself made this argument in his 2003 State of the Union address:

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

It didn't take long for the media to get it wrong. One day after Bush said we must not wait until the threat is imminent, the Los Angeles Times reported on its front page that Bush had promised "new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime poses an imminent danger to the world." Also, "Bush argued that use of force is not only justified but necessary, and that the threat is not only real but imminent." Exactly
backwards.

But don't trust just Hayes, look it up yourself. Here's the state of the Union address, just before the war.

Ok folks, here's the crux of the reason for the war. To prevent Saddam from becoming an imminent threat.

Consider also, as I have written before, this, by George Friedman:

If one country is afraid that another country has WMD and might use them, you don’t start threatening them with war months before you are ready and wage a very public countdown to a proposed attack date. If you really believe a country has WMD, you say nothing and make no threats until you are ready to strike. (268-269, America's Secret War)

That one really should not even be an issue, but for some reason it is.

Moving on to number two....

2. Iraq had WMDs.

First, some general reading:

No WMDs? Really?
Is this one of Saddam's labs?
Saddam and the Bomb
Not Missing: Moved
Democrats Say the Darndest Things!
Iraqi Terrorists Almost Snatched Chemical Warheads
Iraq's WMDs
About Those Iraqi Weapons . . .

Now, the funny thing about this one is that it is in many ways wed to the first. The only way Bush can be wrong, much less having lied, on this one, is if he claimed that Iraq had stockpiles of nuclear bombs, with their "death to america" logos flashing and pointing at the White House. Bizarre as it may seem, this seems to be what people think when they say "Bush lied about WMDs" The truth is not so simple.

For one, Bush did not contend that Saddam was loaded to the teeth with WMDs, rather the emphasis was on the prevention of his aquiring WMDs and also on the programs he had for the production of WMDs. This is, of course, still quite valid today, perhaps even more so. Consider David Kay:

"I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."

Well...how is that possible anyway? Oh, I see.

After all, how could anyone doubt he was trying to aquire them? He had used them on his own people! And with sanctions about to fall apart.....its not something pleasant to think about.

At any rate, as for those non-existant WMDs, just look at the links I provided above. What we have found is quite revealing in the extreme. Including Russian corruption and likely help in hiding and moving them across the Syrian border, which seems more and more likely day by day. Trucks crossing the border right up to the war, Israeli intelligence reporting that they were WMDs, it goes on and on.

Also, strangely enough, the fact is that WMDs components and weapons have been found. Why does no one know this? Because the press does not report it.

Even the Duelfer Report, which was supposed to have debunked Iraq's WMD threat once and for all, did nothing of the sort:

The only reasonable conclusion anyone can draw from the Duelfer report -- even if we ignore the other mountains of evidence about Saddam's WMD -- is that Saddam had WMD and in the six months we spent trying to convince Kofi, Dominique, and their pals to act, Saddam's regime moved the WMD, cleaned out the evidence, and did their best to conceal what they had done. That they did so with the active participation of Assad's Syria is also terribly clear.

I could probably go on and on about his one, but for now, this should be enough to convince any sane person that Bush did not, in fact, "lie".

3. Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda

This one is probably the funniest of all, because it is something Bush has pointed out. But it is also true. Wow, can't be much lying here. Can there? Well, sadly, yes. In the press and on the left, it is still fashionable to assert that Saddam and al-Qaeda were completely seperate, in fact they could not work together because of religious differences.

The entire thing is patently absurd. Consider:

The Connection Continued
Saddam's Iraq Was Motel 6 for Terrorism
Inconvenient Facts
The Worst of Intentions: What Saddam's Iraq was up to
The Mother of All Connections
Jordan King: Iraq Refused to Deport Zarqawi
The Osama-Saddam connection: in Yemen
Another Link in the Chain
Saddam Sponsord Birth of al Qaeda in Iraq
Saddam and al Qaeda
The Al-Douri Factor
The Four Day War
An Evolving Assessment
Saddam and bin Laden
The Rise of ansar al islam
The Pope of Terrorism Pt. 1
The Pope of Terroism Pt.2
The Algerian connection

Bush did not claim that Iraq had a hand in 9/11. In fact, no one did. But somehow that is the favorite talking point. What Bush did say, however, has simply been strengthened. That Saddam collaborated with terrorists. What else is there to say? There was a connection. Saddam was supporting terrorism. End of story. The only way to believe otherwise is to lie yourself.


At the end of the day, none of this should really even matter. Why the angst and gnashing of teeth over the removal of a brutal dictator, who gased his own people and put them through paper shreders? Saddam was a threat not only to the US, but to the entire free world. He had shown no hesitancy in using weapons in the past, why should he just stop because we want him to? Why then would he not account for his weapons, and throw out inspectors? Those who really think Saddam was just peacefully siting in Bagdad, looking after his people when the US threw him out of power, are deluding themselves.