Yes, Bush lied about Iraq: Why are we still arguing about this?

[DonViejo]

Sorry, WSJ: Reminding everyone that George W. Bush lied about Iraq is good and necessary -- because man, did he lie

SIMON MALOY

It seems clear now that we, as a nation, will never stop relitigating the Iraq war. Owing to partisan loyalty or (for the politicians and pundits who personally backed the war) gross self-interest, most of today’s conservatives will stridently argue that the war George W. Bush started on false pretenses was justified (despite the lack of justification) and on track for a successful conclusion (despite every bit of evidence to the contrary) before Barack Obama came in and threw away all of Bush’s good work.

In this vein, the Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed yesterday by Laurence Silberman, the conservative federal judge who co-chaired the 2004 Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. In the piece, Silberman takes objection with Ron Fournier (of all people) blithely asserting that George W. Bush “lied” in order to make the Iraq war a reality. Saying Bush “lied” is a bad, hurtful argument, Silberman writes, because he Bush didn’t lie; he just got every single thing wrong and that’s totally different:

Our WMD commission ultimately determined that the intelligence community was “dead wrong” about Saddam’s weapons. But as I recall, no one in Washington political circles offered significant disagreement with the intelligence community before the invasion. The National Intelligence Estimate was persuasive—to the president, to Congress and to the media.

It was just bad intelligence! Everyone was fooled! You can’t say Bush “lied” about Iraq pursuing WMDs or about the Saddam Hussein regime having ties to 9/11 because he was just echoing what the intelligence community said, which was wrong. This is a line of argumentation that Bush administration officials and Iraq war boosters have been clinging to ever since it became clear that U.S. troops would found no mobile biological weapons labs and no Mutual Admiration Society correspondence between Saddam and Osama. “We were wrong just like everyone else” isn’t a particularly compelling argument, though I suppose that if you’re responsible for one of the modern era’s most significant foreign policy disasters, “shared incompetence” is a more appealing excuse than “willful deception.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/yes_bush_lied_about_iraq_why_are_we_still_arguing_about_this/

[still_one]

1. The media were willing partners, and did not do their job

[Octafish]

2. SILBERMAN helped Reagan and Bush do October Surprise business with IRAN.

After Reagan was elected, Silberman was named a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington and moved into a house next door to Rogovin. Their friendship flourished and the two men bought a boat together. So there also was a reason Rogovin might have played down the Lavi-Silberman connection when I talked with him in the early 1990s. He may have wanted to avoid embarrassing or implicating his friend, Silberman.

SOURCE: https://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/17/the-lenfant-plaza-hotel-mystery/

No wonder so many hate on Parry. The guy's pegged the BFEE warmongers for what they are.

[OnyxCollie]

3. Could it be that corporations and the government

secretly colluded to benefit each other, while providing a false, but readily accepted, theory to the mass public to avoid punishment?

Nah, 'cause that would be a conspiracy, and everyone knows conspiracies are make-believe things, like leprechauns and unicorns.

[democrank]

4. So Silberman chose the word "hurtful" to describe the war lie argument against George W. Bush.

Really? Poor hurt Junior Bush, relaxing in his tub, painting dogs, golfing. Since Siberman is so current on all things Bush, I wonder if he knows what`s deep inside that man nowadays, in that giant black hole where Bush`s conscience used to be?

If Silberman wants to write about hurt as it pertains to the Iraq War, he should leave the comfort of his office and stroll the halls of VA hospitals, maybe stop in at the prosthetics wings or the PTSD units or maybe the Disabled Vet offices. He`d really learn a thing or two about hurt if he sat outside the pharmacies and watched young vets dragging a leg, staring blankly, shaking, pacing....all Bush-caused hurt.

Nobody needs to worry about the down-and-dirty words used to describe George W. Bush and his life-altering pre-war lies. The ridiculous notion that "everybody" was fooled is laughable, just as laughable as wearing a flag pin to prove you`re a patriot.

The truth about the Iraq War lie needs to be told over, and over, and over. That`s as evident to me as the still-visible blood on Bush`s painter hands.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. But, saying Bush lied is also convenient excuse for the politicians who voted for his war.

One, who is supposedly "smart" and will be running for president on the Democratic ticket.

[JHB]

6. We're not the ones arguing, it's a co-chair of the "nothing to see here" commission

Silberman is conspicuously ignoring later commissions that had access to more information.

Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't true

By Jonathan S. Landay

McClatchy Newspapers June 5, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials promoted the invasion of Iraq with public statements that weren't supported by intelligence or that concealed differences among intelligence agencies, the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday in a report that was delayed by bitter partisan infighting.

A second report found that a special office set up under then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld conducted "sensitive intelligence activities" that were inappropriate "without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department." That report revealed that Pentagon counterintelligence officials suspected that Iran might have tried to use the group to influence administration policymakers.

Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said the administration's actions went far beyond simply being misled by bad intelligence.

"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence," Rockefeller said in a statement. "But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/05/39963/senate-committee-bush-knew-iraq.html#storylink=cpy

[tetedur]

7. Does any one remember

Bush pulled U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq in March before the weather got too hot so that he could invade? The Inspectors were not finding anything and could have determined without war whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction. Resolution 1441 specifically said the inspectors would report to the Security Council and they would decide what needed to be done. Bush wanted war and he got one but we pay the price.

[DonViejo]

8. Yep, I remember that but, as we later learned,

"The Decider" gets what he wants, screw everyone else!

[JHB]

9. I also remember when, in a Soviet-grade rewrite of history,...

...he turned around and started claiming that Saddam wouldn't allow inspectors in.

And armies of inFOXicated accepted him at his word. I had several conversations that went along the lines of:
"Do you remember Hans Blix?"
"Yeah..."
"WHY do you remember Hans Blix? Why was he in the news back then? Because he was in Iraq and everyone was talking like he was Inspector Clouseau for not finding WMDs!"