Center for American Progress's Refutations of *'s claims this morning

[Selwynn]

this is fabulous!

CLAIM vs. FACT: The President on Meet the Press
February 8, 2004

President Bush wouldn’t have agreed to an hour long network interview without a good reason and today he had one: in the span of a week he’s faced the dual challenges of a loss of credibility on the war in Iraq and his management of the economy.

CLAIM: "I expected to find the weapons I based my decision on the best intelligence possible...The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon."

FACT - WHITE HOUSE REPEATEDY WARNED BY INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: The Washington Post reported this weekend, "President Bush and his top advisers ignored many of the caveats and qualifiers included in the classified report on Saddam Hussein's weapons." Specifically, the President made unequivocal statements that Iraq "has got chemical weapons" two months after the DIA concluded that there was "no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons." He said, "Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production" three months after the White House received an intelligence report that clearly indicated Department of Energy experts concluded the tubes were not intended to produce uranium enrichment centrifuges. He said, "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," three months after "the CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about" the claim.

MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE:
http://www.americanprogress.org/AccountTempFiles/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/CVFMEETPRESS.DOC

[unblock]

1. "the evidence i had was the best ..."

his claim was that it was so good, that it justified jettisonning established international law and embark on the insane concept of "preemptive war" BASED ON THIS INTELLIGENCE.

it's one thing to say we have to preemptively attack in self-defense when you have iron-clad proof of a clear and present danger.

but it's another thing entirely to preemptively attack in self-defense when you have, at best, reasonable doubt that you're in any real danger.

his "preemptive war" doctrine is a declaration that we can invade purely based on our own fears, even if unjustified.

what a crappy cover.


and the irony is that this wasn't even the true rationale behind the attack. wmd's was never more than the cover story. the real reasons were finishing up poppy's war and seizing oil.

it's not the rationale for war that's falling apart, it's the COVER STORY that's falling apart.