Has this administration ever done any good thing it promised or claimed? Still not come up with anything? Me either. And here's another example of the Bushies trying to take credit for something they've not done.
Botswana's Gains Against AIDS Put U.S. Claims to Test
As global leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum in January, officials from President Bush's $15 billion anti-AIDS program issued a news release citing their accomplishments. Nowhere were the numbers more impressive than in Botswana, where 32,839 AIDS patients were receiving life-extending treatment with the help of the U.S. government, they said.
But thousands of miles away in Botswana, the Bush administration's claim provoked frustration and anger among public and private partners that had built Africa's most far-reaching AIDS treatment program, recalled those involved. Although the Bush program had promised millions of dollars of support, no money had yet arrived, they said.
More...
The operations manager of Botswana's treatment program, Segolame Ramotlhwa, called the U.S. figures "a gross misrepresentation of the facts." His boss, Patson Mazonde, who as deputy permanent secretary for health services had overseen the program since its inception in 2002, called the Bush claim "false" but suggested it was merely a mistake.
They agreed on the number of patients in Botswana who had been put on treatment because of the Bush program: zero.
So, Bush offers $15 billion during his 2003 State of the Union address to support the fight against AIDs. Little did countries like Botswana know that this 'support' would not necessarily come to them in the form of actual money.
The head of the Bush administration's program in Botswana, Peter H. Kilmarx, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said in an interview here in May that he was aware of the upset among the Botswanan officials but that the treatment claims fit within U.S. government guidelines. The definition used for measuring support, he said, had broadened to the point that even assistance as trivial as editing a government health official's speeches could allow the Bush program to say it had supported treatment for everyone receiving antiretrovirals from that nation's public health system.
Money for doctors, drugs and clinics or putting that extra polish on a speech, it's all the same, isn't it? The administration is also claiming credit for the support of patients who received the medicine from a private doctor because the doctor had profited from a U.S. funded training program.
So, Bush makes his pledge of $15 billion but, as the Washington Post reports,
... over the next year, as administration officials developed the president's promise into a program, they recast the goal. It was not practical, officials say they concluded, for the U.S. government to build clinics, hire doctors and hand out drugs all over the developing world.
Of course. One can't just go around handing out these drugs willy-nilly. It will just encourage people to get AIDs, I guess.
When asked if there was anyone who would not be receiving help if not for the aid being given by Bush, Patson Mazonde, deputy permanent secretary for health services in Botswana, says there is none.
A final, ironic note on this article:
He added that a series of conversations with U.S. officials in recent weeks had impressed on him the many ways that the Bush program funding was assisting Botswana, and that several million dollars promised for the national treatment program would soon be available.
I'm sure they are holding their breath, Mr. Bush.
Oh, and I promised you more than one lie, didn't I? Okay, this might not be a lie but, well, you know, probably is. It has to do with the White House's claim that the DOD website, AmericaSupportsYou.mil was receiving 10,000 hits per second right after the President's speech. You be the judge.