Did Bush lie to us about Iraq's WMD?

[DaveB]

Published on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 by the Miami Herald

Did Our Leaders Lie to Us? Do We Even Care? - by Robert Steinback

Now that wasn't so bad, was it?''

One of my pro-war acquaintances said this in a reassuring, not gloating, manner. His tone was a congenial gesture in the wake of our heated arguments over the Iraq War in recent weeks; we had remained tensely civil.

I shrugged. Indeed, the shooting war in Iraq had -- from an American vantage point -- gone well. Relatively few casualties on our side; surviving Iraqis clearly pleased to be rid of Saddam Hussein, if wary of our presence.

This summation, of course, ignores many unanswered questions. So I asked him one.

''Would it bother you if we were to discover that George Bush lied about the case for going to war?'' I asked.

He knew what I was referring to. His blunt answer left my jaw hanging.

``Everyone knows he lied about weapons of mass destruction being the point of the war.''

Just a few weeks ago, any statement from me that Bush's case for war was riddled with inconsistencies and illogic would have brought swift and fierce condemnation from this fellow.

Now, basking in the glow of military conquest -- and confronted by a thus-far futile search for chemical and biological weapons -- this hawk breezily conceded the point while also waving it away as inconsequential.

Have we become a country that wears its hypocrisy openly and proudly?

We Americans have always had a penchant for creative self-delusion. We chafe, for example, at corruption in government, yet routinely reelect the scoundrels who perpetrate it. We demand both services and cuts in the taxes that pay for them.

But it seems the agony of Sept. 11 has pushed us into an altogether new realm, where we don't even care if our rhetoric makes sense, as long as we're led to a feel-good conclusion. The joy of kicking butt obliterates the need to make an honest case for war.

Wasn't it just four years ago -- I reminded my acquaintance -- that a roiling posse of critics piously preached how utterly unacceptable it was for a president to be excused even for a piddling lie that had absolutely no impact on the lives of any non-Beltway American? Bill Clinton was impeached -- impeached! -- for not admitting an intern had performed a sex act on him in the Oval Office.

Now there is plausible doubt that George Bush and Colin Powell were telling us the whole truth when they pronounced, not as a possibility but a fact, that Hussein had these terrible weapons and could at any moment instigate a terrible strike on America.

Bush dismissed the efforts of chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, whose teams searched for evidence of the chemical and biological weapons that Hussein allegedly possessed, and found nothing. We must go to war anyway, Bush told us, because Hussein refuses to disarm.

Well, where is it all?

Our troops swept across Iraq in three weeks and secured oil wells within hours. Didn't we have a priority list of potential weapons depots to seize and secure? Did we even know where to start looking?

Now the administration is all but giving up the search, saying it hopes Iraqi informants will eventually lead us to the stuff. If we didn't know where it was, how did we know it was so grave a threat that war was essential?

Did Bush mislead us? Was the American public duped into supporting a war that killed 128 Americans, 31 Britons and thousands of Iraqis, damaged U.S. prestige around the world and may have worsened, rather than improved, U.S. security?

Oh, who cares -- we won the war!

At least Bush wasn't lying about sex in the Oval Office! We'd have impeached him for that.

And, hey, Bush wasn't under oath, as was Clinton -- although it would be nice to believe swearing honesty wouldn't be necessary when a president addresses the nation.

I don't regard my hawkish acquaintance as a hypocrite; for sure, his brutal honesty makes him a rare breed.

But we're heading for big trouble as a nation if we aren't even concerned that our heads of state may be manipulating us by manipulating the truth.

In a nation where hypocrisy is rewarded, expect more lies.

Robert Steinback is a Miami Herald columnist.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Let's see, I have a semi trailer full of Hillary's new book that I hide somewhere in the state of California. I then kill all witnesses that helped me hide it so there would be no traitors. As the inspection moves through the state, some of my buddies are taking small loads of books across the border to Mexico and giving them to that government for safe keeping. How long would it take someone to find that trailer before I can smuggle it out of the country or destroy what I can't move?

I never considered Saddam's WMD as the primary cause to invade Iraq. The invasion occured to prevent any new development of WMD and to prevent those weapons from being given to terrorist organizations for use against the US.

 

[standingbear]

i agree

finding some would be a plus but really not necessary.saddam and his goon squads needed removed.we may never know the full depth of what went on before,during and after the iraq war,on both sides and im sure itll not be released to the press or anybody else.so take the multiple answer on wmd.1. they were destroyed as we were kicking in the front door. 2. they were sent somewhere else or 3. they have yet to be found.then ask yourself this; what happened to ALL saddams wealth?(besides the palaces and hidden stashes)theres alot more going on than wmd.

 

[Tim Burke]

We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Saddam had WMD at one point, as he used them on the Kurds.
Their destruction has never been documented.
If Saddam had destroyed them, there was no reason not to provide us with documentation.
Clearly, then, the WMD were a serious issue.
Having said that, I wish our argument had been:
A) We are at war against terrorism and its supporters.
B) Saddam is sending money to the familes of homicide bombers.
C) Saddam is supporting terrorists.

 

[Selfdfenz]

The major confrontation has just ended but many parts of this not-too-small country are still big question marks security wise.

Why would anyone assume this stuff would be easy and quick to find? We'll be looking for some time in the future but I believe we will find whatever SH did not send to Syria or give to groups like Hamas etc.

The Henchmen we have nabbed so far say there were no WMD.
That is a lie.
That is also proof SH is still alive and they still fear the man and for themselves.

I'm sure initially many of the higher level Nazis at Nuremberg claimed not to have known about the death camps for fear we would hang them.
They knew. We proved it. Many did hang.

JMHO
S-

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Judging from the answers in this thread so far, No, it doesn't matter at all.

 

[Geech]

That's kind of cynical, Derek. Keep in mind, even if we never do find WMD or WMD programs in Iraq, it still isn't clear the President lied about it. He may simply have had bad intelligence or bad analysts.

That being said, is it reasonable to assume we would know how we felt if we knew the President lied about this? No, it isn't. People are complicated, and emotions are doubly so.

I guess it comes down to a matter of crossing that bridge when we get to it.

 

[Don Gwinn]

Don't think that's what they said, Derek. They said they wouldn't be alarmed if the WMD are not found, or if it takes years before we find out what happened to them. That's not the same thing as saying they wouldn't be alarmed if they thought Bush had lied. The two aren't the same thing at all.

We know they were there (in fact, our government apparently at least tacitly approved the transfer of several biological weapon cultures, like Anthrax, in the 1980s.) We don't know if they were destroyed, but we know they were supposed to be and that efforts to verify that fact were stymied for 12 years.

And this brings up a point that's been bouncing around in my head for a few days now. Both the local liberal commentators and the national set have been fond of saying that the administration kept bouncing from reason to reason in trying to sell the war, that first it was a response to 9/11, then it was about WMD, then it was about freeing the Iraqi people.
The truth is the opposite. All three of those reasons were put forth from the start and argued simultaneously, and if you actually the work of the war apologists, they generally acknowledge that no one reason put forth by the administration is overwhelming. It is the fact that all these conditions and reasons exist at once that makes the difference.

The left, on the other hand, doesn't want to spend its time trying to discredit four or five reasons to go to war, each of which supports the other (understandably so.) Thus they pick on one reason at a time and attempt to cull it from the herd. They're the ones who have attempted to portray the action purely as a war for 9/11 vengeance, or purely for oil profits, or purely over WMD, or purely for the liberation of Iraq. This allows them to tailor their arguments and concentrate more narrowly, but it's not honest. It is, in fact, the very tactic they accuse the administration of favoring.

 

[Country Boy]

Saddam wasn't coming clean. He was told to put all his cards on the table, and he didn't. He hadn't come clean in 12 years, and he wasn't coming clean with the new deadlines he was given. Saddam had a chance to leave Iraq and prevent and invastion; he didn't. What on earth were we supposed to think when scientists were hiding documents in their homes, and were afraid to speak to inspectors because they feared for the lives of their family members? Sounds like somebody's hiding something. I don't care if Saddam's biggest WMD was two firecrackers tied together, he wasn't coming clean, and he was making things tough for the inspectors. He made it look like he was hiding something. We decided to forcefully go in and investigate.

 

[Edward429451]

Derek, how dare you be so cynical and realistic? As long as the government has any plausible deniability whatsoever, we should all have total blind faith in whatever administration they say we voted for.

He may simply have had bad intelligence or bad analysts.

Or good speechwriters!

 

[Geech]

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

 

[Edward429451]

Maybe so geech. <shrug> I listen to em, read about em, ponder the issues, and just dont see where any faith is warranted in them. Their words and actions just don't add up, overseas or at home. There's alot of deception going on, believe it or not.

American people keep on giving them the benefit of the doubt, and continue to die, and continue to be oppressed more and more.

 

[Geech]

Well, my name isn't Thomas, but I want to see evidence of wrong-doing before I start assuming the worst. Don't get me wrong, I don't support our government in general. I think it's oppressive, intrusive and contrary to the principles of liberty this country was founded on. However, I'm just not going to assume the worst about everyone in the government. The whole is less than the sum of the parts, so to speak.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Keep in mind, even if we never do find WMD or WMD programs in Iraq, it still isn't clear the President lied about it. He may simply have had bad intelligence or bad analysts.

I don't see that as terribly likely. Regardless, when you send your lieutenants out to tell the world that your evidence is 100% accurate, but no-one else is allowed to see it, and you're using that evidence as justification to go to war, then you're assuming the responsibility for bad intelligence.

Would you have given this same benefit of the doubt to Clinton, or Bush Sr (after Iran-Contra)? How about Nixon? JFK? Johnson? FDR? Lincoln?

Cynicism is, IMHO, something one develops when watching our leaders work. As far as I can tell (at least on the national scene, and very often at the local level as well) all politicians engage in unethical behavior, and we-the-people never seem to benefit from it.

I think it's dangerous and careless to not apply a high level of scrutiny to the administration that gave us the Patriot Act, and who seems ok with the idea of locking up US citizens without due process.

This isn't cool stuff we're seeing, guys. It might look good now because this particular gun is being pointed at people you don't like, but keep in mind that some day we're gonna be looking down the same barrel...

They said they wouldn't be alarmed if the WMD are not found, or if it takes years before we find out what happened to them. That's not the same thing as saying they wouldn't be alarmed if they thought Bush had lied. The two aren't the same thing at all.

True, the two statements are not equivalent. But the thinking behind them seems to be. Worse, when this question comes up you never see a response like "Saddam was a bad guy, but there ought to be consequences for starting a war when you know the justification is a lie." No-one saying "I want to see more evidence, but this disturbs me." Instead it's more "hurray for us! He was evil, we're good, shut the hell up already!"

There is a big chunk of the US population (mostly self-identified as "conservatives") that are backing the war effort because they didn't like Saddam, or they think backing Bush is the right thing to do, or because they're happy we're finally throwing our weight around, or because we're finally doing something to get some payback for 9/11.. (All justifications from other discussions on this topic). This same group is willing to back the actions the Bush administration took to get us into the war, even if those actions include lying, or violating international law (whatever that means), or handing over evidence to the international community that looks to be completely false (whether we falsified it or not). When the issue comes up that what happened might have been illegal or immoral, the discussion invariably turns to why those issues don't particularly matter in this instance, and we get another discussion of what an evil guy Saddam Hussein was.

Yes, he was a bad dude. Yes, it's good that he's now out of power. No, I'm not confident that our actions in Iraq are going to make us "safer" in the long run (remember, we're mostly responsible for the Shah in Iran, and Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, and the Saudi family, and Pinochet, and ...) -- we have a history of using short-term thinking when meddling in world affairs, and for the most part it seems to come back and bite us in the butt. But that's just the libertarian non-interventionist in me talking...

It's starting to look like Bush went to war for his own reasons (he was talking about doing so while still campaigning) and told us whatever we needed to hear in order to believe what we were doing was OK. I don't care why he did it, just that it looks more and more likely that he did it; current unwillingness to take actions that might give ligitimacy to his actions and credibility to earlier claims adds to this uneasy feeling I've got.

The only thing worse is how willing a large part of the population is to simply look the other way.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Am I wrong? Would anyone here change their tune if it was clear to them that Bush was lying about our justifications for throwing troops into Iraq?

 

[DaveB]

I think that the point of the article was the claim that Bush lied, and that (at least one) of his supporters knows that he lied, and that it doesn't matter to that supporter.

Like Derek says: it doesn't seem to matter at all.

Is this a problem?

Are people who support a liar (BC) obligated to support the liar that replaces him as CIC? How about the converse?

db

 

[DRC]

I'll answer the question.

Would it bother me if George Bush lied about WMD? Yes.

Did he lie about WMD? No.

I hope that sums it up well enough.

DRC

 

[Geech]

DRC has it right. Until you prove that Bush lied, he didn't lie. Innocent until proven guilty, anyone?

 

[ahenry]

hmmmm,

I agree with DRC, but I’m not so sure I agree with Geech. A politician, especially the president of the United States, has a little bit less leeway with his words than say, my next-door neighbor. I have always, and will continue to always, question everything a politician says. With that said, there is more than ample reason to think that Bush was speaking the truth about WMD as well as the connection between terrorists (specifically al Quida) and Saddam. In fact, I was of that opinion before Bush even said word one about it. The “evidence†that Bush was lying is thin and spotty at best, and frankly smacks of sour grapes and is more likely driven by political motives than by those seeking the truth (not referring to members here, but the “Bush lied†crowd as a whole). Some time from now after we have had more than four MET’s in country and have exhausted all leads and everything already found has been determined to not be some sort of WMD and there is determined to be no connection between Saddam and al Quida, then I will believe that Bush was lying, and that has nothing to do with political likes or dislikes.

 

[kidao35]

Everyone knows he lied about weapons of mass destruction being the point of the war.

WOW! This 'friend of the author' just saved us all a whole lot of time and money! OK boys, put away those field test kits and Geiger counters, games over!

And sergeant, get your men out of those hidden tunnels! Didn't you get the word from Robert Steinback's friend?!!!!

If I wrote an article everytime I got some half-assed opinion from some dolt I knew, there wouldn't be enough room on this server to hold it all.

Bill Clinton was impeached -- impeached! -- for not admitting an intern had performed a sex act on him in the Oval Office.

Bill was impeached for lying about this under oath to a Grand Jury. I guess "not admitting" is the same? Depends on what "is" is.

And, hey, Bush wasn't under oath, as was Clinton

Makes a grudging, vague admission to that fact, buried much later in the article.

Our troops swept across Iraq in three weeks and secured oil wells within hours.

I guess we should have bypassed all the oil fields in the south (where we came in from Kuwait, remember?), to push onto the alleged WMD sites on Colin Powell's handdrawn map? Of course, if we let the Iraqis blow all the oil rigs, Mr. Steinback could write an article about the "environmental catastrophe" we caused.

Well, enough of the article. If its shown that Bush lied about the reasons to go to war, then he needs to be impeached. So far I have not seen any evidence that Bush lied, in this article, or any other in a plethora of similar articles.

Innocent until proven guilty,anyone?

Kind of hard to gripe about the Patriot Act, then run roughshod over this principle.

 

[Tim Burke]

Would it bother me if Bush lied about WMD?
Yes.
Do I think he lied?
No.
If he did lie, would I think we shouldn't have invaded Iraq?
No.
If we fail to find WMD, do I think that means Bush lied about them?
No.

 

[Edward429451]

OK perhaps I came across a little pessimistic, I been kinda depressed lately. I dont assume the worst about everyone in government, just the top 50 people probably. Even GW reports to other people. He may have some weight to throw around and can make some things happen but I do not think he runs the country. His speechwriters are his speechwriters but the are also someone elses speechwriters. This is what they want GW (or the current figurehead) to say to the masses. To garner support and control for the furtherance of the agenda which will sweep lots further than just Irac, I'll wager.

Even if he didn't lie about the WMD, The past 20 or 10 years track record of our govt in general speaks for itself and does note bode well for the future of America and indeed, the entire world. The faces change, but the agenda remains the same. The iron fist is closing and its happening quicker lately. I think its just a little naive to use the adage of innocent until proven guilty when you're discussing politicians who have such a bad track record and in such sensitive positions in the world. No offense intended there but the writings on the wall in my mind.

 

[Geech]

Kind of hard to gripe about the Patriot Act, then run roughshod over this principle.

How do you figure? Why does being guilty of one crime make you guilty of every crime you're accused of?

 

[Jeff Thomas]

1. The article was written by yet another Clintonite with a grudge. Strike one.

2. I don't believe Bush lied. I agree that for any of us, this is simply a judgment call ... none of us can truly know one way or the other.

3. If Bush lied, yes, it would matter. I grew up during the Vietnam war ... I know my government's officials have lied often. Still, based upon all the evidence and arguments, I don't believe Bush lied. If it were proven that Bush did lie in order to instigate this war, then I think impeachment would be in order ... just as LBJ should have been impeached for the Gulf of Tonkin mess.

4. I also believe that Saddam's cronies, with probable aid from Syria and other nefarious groups, have indeed worked to spirit WMD's away. And, I also agree that the biggest issue was that Saddam would have inevitably shared WMD's with other radical Islamists. I think this part is a no-brainer. For those that insist upon the proverbial smoking gun, I would predict such people wouldn't draw their own weapon until they saw the bad guy's smoking gun ...

During time of war ... and, I certainly do see this as a time of war ... I believe it is wise to remember that the enemy is probably even more dangerous than our own politicians.

Regards from TX

 

[Khornet]

It all depends on where you start from.

If you already despise Bush, if you already see America as a force for evil, if you already believe that the UN is a force for good, then Bush must be lying. Case closed.

If you don't start from there, you may be:
a) a blindly trusting fool who wouldn't see Bush's lies even if they were laid out for you, or
b) a cynical exploiter who wants that oil and doesn't care if lies are necessary to get it, or
c) someone who looked at all the evidence available so far to us poor schmucks, and concluded that Bush was trying to do right, and therefore giving the benefit of a doubt.

But if you start from the despise-Bush standpoint, then case c) doesn't exist, and all us who support him fall into cases a) and b).

 

[Matt1911]

If Bush lied,it would matter very much.

I do not belive he lied

I was never under the impression wmd were the sole reason.