Most wars are started or joined because of lies. The Mexican-American War of 1848, the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898 and the Vietnam War are all good examples. Lately, thanks to Judith Miller's whiny piece seeking to whitewash her own role in conveying the lies that got us into Iraq War, Jeb Bush's flubbing and flipping what should have been a simple answer about whether he would have done as his brother did in Iraq, Hillary Clinton's Senate vote in 2002 on the authorization to use military force against Iraq and the current situation with ISIL, discussion of the entry into that aggression has gotten some new life.
Therefore, for Memorial Day, it's appropriate to reprise a 7-year-old Daily Kos post about the compilation of 935 Iraq War lies that was produced by the Center for Public Integrity. Here's what the study of the lies concluded:
"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," the study concluded.
"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," it said.
Here's the post—
Lies, Damned Lies, a Searchable Database of Lies originally published here on January 22, 2008:
For the past six years, activists, progressive bloggers and a handful of traditional media pundits have accused Mister Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney and others in the cronyfest running the executive branch of lying us into Iraq. The relentless response - everybody from Condoleeza Rice to Bill Kristol to the least-read right-wing pundithug - has been to say we're the liars, and traitors as well, for daring suggest such a thing at a time when the nation faces the most dire threat since Adolf Hitler gave the go-ahead to heavy-water experiments, blah, blah, blah.
Eventually—without apologies, of course—there were a few admissions delivered in the passive-aggressive tense popularized decades ago by Richard Nixon: "mistakes were made."
Now, thanks to the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, everybody can check out those lies for themselves at The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War.
Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith at CPI write:
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. ...
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.
Those 935 lies, by the way, do not include "indirect false statements" such as that Iraq had possession of "dangerous weapons."
No single lie is going to surprise anybody who has been following the fabrications of the Cheney-Bush administration. But CPI has done a real service to place nearly 1000 of these in one easy-to-access location.
Mister Bush told the most lies: 259. Colin Powell clocked in second with 244 lies.
As for the administration response, the Boston Globe reports:
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.
"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.
Uh-huh. Time to start a new database.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006—A Choice Predicament:
Via The Carpetbagger Report:
Exactly one year ago tomorrow, the House easily passed bi-partisan legislation that would remove restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The companion measure in the Senate had a filibuster-proof majority, Bill Frist endorsed the bill and vowed to bring it to the floor, and polls showed overwhelming support from the public. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wrote at the time, "Unless there's another war, stem cells will become one of the defining issues of the 2006 campaign." It seemed we were finally on the brink of a breakthrough for science, medical research, and public health. And then ... nothing. |
I guess there's two ways Republicans can play this: They can go ahead and get the bill to the White House, putting the President in one hell of a bind and creating at least the appearance of independence. Or they can kick it down the road to appease their fundamentalist masters and take a chance on being tarred and feathered with the issue come November.
It's often said the Democrats don't stand for anything. But here the GOP has a choice of life versus ideology, loyalty to Mr. 29% Vs We the People. We'll see exactly who and what the Republicans stand for on this issue alone.
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