[For all 935 false statements, including when and where they occurred, go to the search page for this project; the methodology used for this analysis is explained here. ]

 

Study: Bushies Lied 935 Times to Sell Iraq Invasion

http://www.alternet.org/story/74715/study%3A_bushies_lied_935_times_to_sell_iraq_invasion?paging=off

 

Bush and his top officials waged a campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. January 23, 2008  |    

  President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

 

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

 

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

 

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

 

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

 

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

 

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:  On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "

In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year." A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- an analysis that hadn't been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn't requested it.  In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."

On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.

On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."

On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."

 

The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.  It was during those critical weeks in early 2003 that the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable U.N. presentation. For all 935 false statements, including when and where they occurred, go to the search page for this project; the methodology used for this analysis is explained here.

 

In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.

 

The cumulative effect of these false statements -- amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts -- was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists -- indeed, even some entire news organizations -- have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.  The "ground truth" of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: "It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."

 Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual "ground truth" regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who's Who of domestic agencies.   On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly -- and in some cases vociferously -- accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation's allies on their way to war.

 

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence -- not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials -- Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz -- have testified before Congress about Iraq.  Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.   Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?

 

 14 Facts Which Show Criminal Negligence and Ass-Covering

Posted on August 26, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

  On this eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, we would like to take a look back at what went wrong.   While the Bush administration tried to make its response to 9/11 its crowning achievement, the truth is that they acted with criminal incompetence and ass-covering.  (1) The U.S. is at least partly responsible for creating Al Qaeda.  For example, Jimmy CarterÕs National Security Adviser admitted on CNN that we organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of ÒAl QaedaÓ in the 1970s to fight the Soviets.  Professor of strategy at the Naval War College and former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer John R. Schindler documents, the U.S. supported Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda terrorists in Bosnia.

(2) The chair of the 9/11 Commission said that the attack was preventable.  It is thoroughly-documented that an attack such as 9/11 was entirely foreseeable.  Specifically, Al Qaeda flying planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was something which American military and intelligence services – and our allies – knew could happen. (3) U.S. intelligence services have repeatedly infiltrated Al Qaeda and related groups, but then idiotically failed to stop them.  For example – as the New York Times, CBS News and others reported – the FBI informant involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center begged the FBI to substitute fake bomb power for real explosives, but his FBI handler moronically let real explosives be used.

Similarly – as reported by Newsweek, the New York Times and others – an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to 2 of the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the U.S., but then stupidly failed to stop them.

Indeed, former counter-terrorism boss Richard Clarke theorizes that top CIA brass tried to recruit the hijackers and turn them to our side, but were unsuccessful. And – when they realized had failed – they covered up their tracks so that the FBI would not investigate their illegal CIA activities , Òmalfeasance and misfeasanceÓ, on U.S. soil. In other words, our intelligence servicesÕ attempts to infiltrate and work with people inside of terrorist cells was horribly botched; and they did a horrible job of stopping terrorist attacks once they were set in motion. (4) Dick Cheney was in charge of all of AmericaÕs counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. See this Department of State announcement and this CNN article.  As such, at least part of the blame for failing to stop the attacks is on his shoulders.  (5) The Energy Task Force chaired by Dick Cheney prior to 9/11 collected maps of Iraqi oil, Saudi and United Arab Emerates fields and potential suitors for that oil. And you might have heard that the oil bigs attended the Task Force meetings.

According to the New Yorker – a secret document written by the National Security Council (NSC) on February 3, 2001 directed NSC staff to cooperate fully with  the Energy Task Force as it considered the ÒmeldingÓ of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: ÒThe review of operational policies towards rogue states,Ó such as Iraq, and Òactions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fieldsÓ. It is difficult to brush off CheneyÕs Energy Task ForceÕs examination of arab oil maps as a harmless comparison of American energy policy with known oil reserves because the NSC explicitly linked the Task Force, oil, and regime change. The above-linked New Yorker article quotes a former senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the NSC said:  If this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans.

See also this essay.  Is that why idiot Cheney – the guy in charge of all terror protection efforts before and on 9/11 – failed to effectively respond to 9/11 with normal air defense?  Was he too busy pining over Iraqi oil maps to pay any attention?  (6)  The military – under the idiot Vice PresidentÕs command that day – didnÕt scramble enough fighter jets, and then scrambled jets far over the Atlantic Ocean, in what Senator Mark Dayton called:  The most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that IÕve ever, under those extreme circumstances, witnessed in the public sector.   Cheney – and the other people in charge of anti-terror response that day – screwed up big time.   But just like the bank CEOs who are rewarded for causing the financial crisis by being given bailouts and subsidies and breaks, the military and intelligence officials who dropped the ball that day have been promoted. As Time reported:  They have basically promoted the exact same people who have presided over the É failure,Ó says a former Justice Department official, Òand those individuals took the same thinking with them.

 As the Washington Post reported, no one from the  CIA, FBI or NSA has been reprimanded, punished, or fired for the events of 9/11.  The same is true for the military personnel on watch that day. For example, General Myers, who was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 11th, was quickly confirmed as Chairman two weeks later. General Ralph Eberhart, Commander in Chief of NORAD at the time of the attack, was promoted to head the new ÒNorthern CommandÓ a year after the attack.

Just as with the financial crisis, no one has been punished, and the people who screwed up have been allowed to fail upwards.   (7) On the day of 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney initiated Continuity of Government Plans that ended AmericaÕs constitutional form of government (at least for some undetermined period of time.)   On that same day, a national state of emergency was declared É and that state of emergency has continuously been in effect up to today. É even though U.S. military and intelligence officials say that the threat from Al Qaeda is now almost entirely non-existent.   (8) Many of the draconian Ònational security programsÓ – such as the Patriot Act, spying on Americans and indefinite detention – overtly approved after 9/11 had actually been implemented or planned before 9/11.  September 11th was used as an excuse to ramp up these programs.  These programs were approved during the Bush administration É but were never terminated by the Obama administration.  In fact, while Obama is a nicer and smarter guy than Bush, top constitutional law professors say that Obama has actually expanded these programs. And top national security experts say that these programs actually harm our national security and increase the threat from terrorism.  See this and this.   (9)  The Bush administration immediately used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to carry out decades-old neoconservative plans to implement regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa.  And see this,   (10) The Bush administration pretended that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11 É  one of the two main justifications for that war.   (11) Allegedly,  Saddam offered to leave Iraq – and the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden - in order to prevent U.S. invasion.  But the U.S. turned down the offers and invaded anyway.  We canÕt get the bad guys using peaceful means, now can we?  We have a war to fight!  (12) In contrast, other governments that might actually have sponsored the attacks have been let off scot-free É and have even been given huge amounts of financial support.  (13) As the 9/11 Commission itself notes, as part of its ass-covering efforts, the Bush administration engaged in criminal obstruction of justice.   There are numerous examples of obstruction of justice into the 9/11 investigation, including:  The chairs of both the 9/11 Commission and the Official Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 said that Soviet-style government ÒmindersÓ obstructed the investigation into 9/11 by intimidating witnesses.  The 9/11 Commissioners concluded that officials from the Pentagon lied to the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements.                 The tape of interviews of air traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 was intentionally destroyed by crushing the cassette by hand, cutting the tape into little pieces, and then dropping the pieces in different trash cans around the building as shown by this NY Times article (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view) and by this article from the Chicago Sun-Times                  As reported by ACLU, FireDogLake, RawStory and many others, declassified documents shows that Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

Moreover, the CIA videotaped the interrogation of 9/11 suspects, falsely told the 9/11 Commission that there were no videotapes or other records of the interrogations, and then illegally destroyed all of the tapes and transcripts of the interrogations.

9/11 Commission co-chairs Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton wrote:   Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation. This is particularly disturbing because the torture methods used were specially-targeted at producing false confessions.  And according to NBC News:               Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured              At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being Òtortured.Ó

0.       One of the CommissionÕs main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ

0.       The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves

The 9/11 Commissioners publicly expressed anger at certain cover ups and obstructions of justice:                    The CommissionÕs co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) Òobstructed our investigationÓ             9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that ÒThere are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didnÕt have access . . . .Ó

0.       9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said ÒWe were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were gettingÓ

0.       9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: ÒIt is a national scandalÓ; ÒThis investigation is now compromisedÓ; and ÒOne of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it upÓ

0.       The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staffÕs inquiry – said ÒAt some level of the government, at some point in timeÉthere was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happenedÒ. He also said ÒI was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described É. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two yearsÉ. This is not spin. This is not true.Ó

And the Co-Chair of the official Congressional Inquiry Into 9/11 – and former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee – has called for a new 9/11 investigation. (14)  The American government – like many other governments – has long spun accidents and intelligence failures as justifications for war propaganda.   Unscrupulous Americans – just like dishonest people all over the world – have long used deception as a basis for war.   Whatever the details of the screw-ups on 9/11, the Bush administration used the attacks as a justification to promote their agenda.  And – instead of changing the agenda – Obama has continued it. Posted in Politics / World News | 2 Comments