Bush was caught on tape lying to America about
Katrina. He was caught on tape lying to the American people, the UN, and the world about
when and
how he decided to go to war with Iraq. He clearly has lied about what his administration was
told about WMD.
But do we know that he knew there weren't WMDs in Iraq? While we certainly know that the administration used false intelligence in their WMD arguments, I cannot think of any conclusive evidence that they knew for certain that there were not WMDs in Iraq.
As I was leaving for a meeting this morning, however, something occured to me about the Murray Waas article that hadn't hit me when I first read it. Waas writes that:
Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. (National Journal)
If the administration actually believed the intelligence it gave the UN and the American people about Iraq's alleged WMDs, Rove would not have wet his pants about Hadley's report that Bush had been warned before his 2003 State of the Union address that,
(The) State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
If Rove and others at the White House were actually convinced that Iraq likely had WMDs, this would have been a no-brainer: The military would have found Iraqs WMDs after the invasion and using questionable intelligence to make their case would have been justified.
But instead, the White House was already concerned with the political fallout that would occur if the press learned Bush had used false intelligence and there were no WMDs.
This report is damaging to the White House not because it suggests, as we already know, that the White House did not care if Iraq had WMDs or not.
It is damaging to the White House because it shows that even before the Iraq War began, Bush and Rove were already preparing for the political fallout when America would learn Iraq had no WMDs.