GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I attacked and took over two countries.
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 2-month period.
I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The ‘poorest’ multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
< PERSONAL>For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
no really, let’s go back in time and NOT attack Afghanistan and Iraq. Let the ol’ libs see how much “better off” the world (according to them) would be.
Emory/Brandon/Joe N:
You guys are totally Right! We were attact and rightfully retaliated. I’ve taken your points and amended bushisacrook’s post. This should be more to your liking:
GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME (ammended)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 2-month period.
I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
PS. I’m sure you will have an intelligent and thoughtful response to the above post, and will not simply resort to pointing out my typo. (Attact = attacked)
GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME (the undisputed points!)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
I presided over the worst security failure in US history. (see 9/11 commission report but actually read it not somebody’s gist of it)
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
–In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.– yes these are (mostly) balanced by 1.5M new jobs, but these new jobs pay on average 9k less p.a. than those lost. Do you want to take a $9,000 drop in pay?
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
–I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.– Yes a majority vote is needed, all you need to do is lie convincingly enough.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history. (thank God we got rid of that old, outdated nuclear (Nuke-u-ler) non-proliferation treaty, environmental protection treaties etc.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history. Seriously dude a joke is not an arugment.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community. (we now know we were deliberaly misled, and despite constant advice from our numerous intelligence agencies and the UN (to name a few) we invaded Iraq anyway. This one stays)
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war. (I thought Bush was a uniter, not a divider) hmm)
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
Please Joe, Enlighten us…
-I know he didn’t throw his medals.
-Some doubt has been cast on whether or not he deserved all his medals (although offical records and all but one of his -surviving shipmates corrobate his story. Even the offical records of his critics (who watched things happen from another boat) support his story.
-In his many many years as a senator he never put forward any bills which some feel cast doubts about his vision as a leader
-He voted in support for the iraq war but claims he thought the invasion decision would have been made with more discresion, should the need arrive)
-He is a liberal, which carries with it a number of ideals forign to many conservatives.
-Kerry can be pursuaded by an arguemnt (apparently called flip-flopping) In other words, he is not stubborn, and won’t support a personal agenda whatever the cost.
-taxes will go up because he believes in basic human rights and responsable spending
-he voted against plunging the nation billions of dollars further into debt while simutaniouly cutting taxes further.
In addition to the above, He has a number of policies I disagree with however unless you give me some very good reasons why we would be better off with our ignorant warmonger, my center-right vote goes to Kerry.
1. Kerry passed 300+ laws in Mass. 99% of those laws were CEREMONIAL. That HARDLY makes him anywhere near fit to lead a country. (For those of you who have no clue what a ceremonial law is, they include re-naming of streets, opening of bridges etc.)
2. Kerry’s stance on nearly every major subject has changed to suit his campaigns needs.
3. Kerry’s efforts in the war (whether true or not) pale im comparison to his actions when he returned from Vietnam.
4. Kerry will not only cut military spending but also our defense. In times like this, that is NOT something we can afford to do.
I find it funny that people can call Bush a “warmongerer” when he is only doing what is best for both the US and the Middle East.
If anyone for one second thinks that it was best to leave Sadaam Hussein in power either needs to consult their Bible and learn the basics of how to treat another human being or they flat out are just ignorant.
Your 4 points are certainly valid points, however the pale in comparison to the laundry list of complaints posted above. I agree that Saddam was not a nice guy, Who should we overthrow next? Saudi Arabia(oh, they are friends of ours so they don’t count)? China? North Korea? Israil(oops!) Every single government who we don’t agree with? Some history for you friend. The US has a long history of supporting these individuals. The US has even, on numerous occasions put tyrants into power. Saddam was once a US alli, as Was Osama Bin Laden. Hell We sold both of them weapons, even some of those nasty ones nobody seems to talk about. Once they had served their purpose they were promptly forgotten about. The state we left Saddam in was a leading cause of the invasion of kuait.
Why do I call Bush a warmonger? Because he lied to you, to me, to the media, to the UN. The only difference between you and me is you still cling to their last resort justification. Mission Accomplished: and we are the most hated we have ever been, alqueda is growing faster than ever. It’s nice to know our president so well served our interests. The WMD claims were BS, Al queda ties were BS and they knew it.
As the 9/11 Commission recently reported, there was “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Similarly, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting in an election year, the White House is grasping at straws to avoid being held accountable for its dishonesty.
The whitewash already has started: In July, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report blaming the CIA for the mess. The panel conveniently refuses to evaluate what the White House did with the information it was given or how the White House set up its own special team of Pentagon political appointees (called the Office of Special Plans) to circumvent well-established intelligence channels. And Vice President Dick Cheney continues to say without a shred of proof that there is “overwhelming evidence” justifying the administration’s pre-war charges.
But as author Flannery O’Conner noted, “Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” That means no matter how much defensive spin spews from the White House, the Bush administration cannot escape the documented fact that it was clearly warned before the war that its rationale for invading Iraq was weak.
Top administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their assertions about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and connections to al Qaeda were overstated. In some cases, they were told their claims were wholly without merit, yet they went ahead and made them anyway. Even the Senate report admits that the White House “misrepresented” classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions.
In short, they knew they were misleading America.
And they did not care.
They knew Iraq posed no nuclear threat
There is no doubt even though there was no proof of Iraq’s complicity, the White House was focused on Iraq within hours of the 9/11 attacks. As CBS News reported, “barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.” Former Bush counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke recounted vividly how, just after the attack, President Bush pressured him to find an Iraqi connection. In many ways, this was no surprise—as former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and another administration official confirmed, the White House was actually looking for a way to invade Iraq well before the terrorist attacks.
But such an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country required a public rationale. And so the Bush administration struck fear into the hearts of Americans about Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMD, starting with nuclear arms. In his first major address on the “Iraqi threat” in October 2002, President Bush invoked fiery images of mushroom clouds and mayhem, saying, “Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”
Yet, before that speech, the White House had intelligence calling this assertion into question. A 1997 report by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the agency whose purpose is to prevent nuclear proliferation—stated there was no indication Iraq ever achieved nuclear capability or had any physical capacity for producing weapons-grade nuclear material in the near future.
In February 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House that said: “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs.” The report was so definitive that Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a subsequent press conference, Saddam Hussein “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”
Ten months before the president’s speech, an intelligence review by CIA Director George Tenet contained not a single mention of an imminent nuclear threat—or capability—from Iraq. The CIA was backed up by Bush’s own State Department: Around the time Bush gave his speech, the department’s intelligence bureau said that evidence did not “add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what [we] consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Nonetheless, the administration continued to push forward. In March 2003, Cheney went on national television days before the war and claimed Iraq “has reconstituted nuclear weapons.” He was echoed by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who told reporters of supposedly grave “concerns about Iraq’s potential nuclear programs.”
Even after the invasion, when troops failed to uncover any evidence of nuclear weapons, the White House refused to admit the truth. In July 2003, Condoleezza Rice told PBS’s Gwen Ifill that the administration’s nuclear assertions were “absolutely supportable.” That same month, White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted: “There’s a lot of evidence showing that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”
They knew the aluminum tubes were not for nuclear weapons
To back up claims that Iraq was actively trying to build nuclear weapons, the administration referred to Iraq’s importation of aluminum tubes, which Bush officials said were for enriching uranium. In December 2002, Powell said, “Iraq has tried to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes which can be used to enrich uranium in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program.” Similarly, in his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said Iraq “has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
But, in October 2002, well before these and other administration officials made this claim, two key agencies told the White House exactly the opposite. The State Department affirmed reports from Energy Department experts who concluded those tubes were ill-suited for any kind of uranium enrichment. And according to memos released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the State Department also warned Powell not to use the aluminum tubes hypothesis in the days before his February 2003 U.N. speech. He refused and used the aluminum tubes claim anyway.
The State Department’s warnings were soon validated by the IAEA. In March 2003, the agency’s director stated, “Iraq’s efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to be related” to nuclear weapons deployment.
Yet, this evidence did not stop the White House either. Pretending the administration never received any warnings at all, Rice claimed in July 2003 that “the consensus view” in the intelligence community was that the tubes “were suitable for use in centrifuges to spin material for nuclear weapons.”
Today, experts agree the administration’s aluminum tube claims were wholly without merit.
They knew the Iraq-uranium claims were not supported
In one of the most famous statements about Iraq’s supposed nuclear arsenals, Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The careful phrasing of this statement highlights how dishonest it was. By attributing the claim to an allied government, the White House made a powerful charge yet protected itself against any consequences should it be proved false. In fact, the president invoked the British because his own intelligence experts had earlier warned the White House not to make the claim at all.
In the fall of 2002, the CIA told administration officials not to include this uranium assertion in presidential speeches. Specifically, the agency sent two memos to the White House and Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use the claim. While the warnings forced the White House to remove a uranium reference from an October 2002 presidential address, they did not stop the charge from being included in the 2003 State of the Union.
Not surprisingly, evidence soon emerged that forced the White House to admit the deception. In March 2003, IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei said there was no proof Iraq had nuclear weapons and added “documents which formed the basis for [the White House’s assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.” But when Cheney was asked about this a week later, he said, “Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong.”
Bush and Rice both tried to blame the CIA for the failure, saying the assertion “was cleared by the intelligence services.” When the intelligence agency produced the memos it had sent to the White House on the subject, Rice didn’t miss a beat, telling Meet The Press “it is quite possible that I didn’t” read the memos at all—as if they were “optional” reading for the nation’s top national security official on the eve of war. At about this time, some high-level administration official or officials leaked to the press that Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife was an undercover CIA agent—a move widely seen as an attempt by the administration to punish Wilson for his July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed that stated he had found no evidence of an Iraqi effort to purchase uranium from Niger.
In recent weeks, right-wing pundits have pointed to new evidence showing the Iraq uranium charge may have flirted with the truth at some point in the distant past. These White House hatchet men say the administration did not manipulate or cherry-pick intelligence. They also tout the recent British report (a.k.a. The Butler Report) as defending the president’s uranium claim. Yet, if the White House did not cherry-pick or manipulate intelligence, why did the president trumpet U.S. intelligence from a foreign government while ignoring explicit warnings not to do so from his own? The record shows U.S. intelligence officials explicitly warned the White House that “the Brits have exaggerated this issue.” Yet, the administration refused to listen. Even The Butler Report itself acknowledges the evidence is cloudy. As nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently pointed out, “The claim appears shaky at best—hardly the stuff that should make up presidential decisions.”
But now, instead of contrition, Republicans are insisting the White House’s uranium charge was accurate. Indeed, these apologists have no option but to try to distract public attention from the simple truth that not a shred of solid evidence exists to substantiate this key charge that fueled the push for war.
They knew there was no hard evidence of chemical or biological weapons
In September 2002, President Bush said Iraq “could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” The next month, he delivered a major speech to “outline the Iraqi threat,” just two days before a critical U.N. vote. In his address, he claimed without doubt that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” He said that “Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons” and that the government was “concerned Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.”
What he did not say was that the White House had been explicitly warned that these assertions were unproved.
As the Washington Post later reported, Bush “ignored the fact that U.S. intelligence mistrusted the source” of the 45-minute claim and, therefore, omitted it from its intelligence estimates. And Bush ignored the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency previously submitted a report to the administration finding “no reliable information” to prove Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons. According to Newsweek, the conclusion was similar to the findings of a 1998 government commission on WMD chaired by Rumsfeld.
Bush also neglected to point out that in early October 2002, the administration’s top military experts told the White House they “sharply disputed the notion that Iraq’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were being designed as attack weapons.” Specifically, the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center correctly showed the drones in question were too heavy to be used to deploy chemical/biological-weapons spray devices.
Regardless, the chemical/biological weapons claims from the administration continued to escalate. Powell told the United Nations on February 5, 2003, “There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.” As proof, he cited aerial images of a supposed decontamination vehicle circling a suspected weapons site.
According to newly released documents in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Powell’s own top intelligence experts told him not to make such claims about the photographs. They said the vehicles were likely water trucks. He ignored their warnings.
On March 6, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, the president went further than Powell. He claimed, “Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents.”
To date, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in Iraq.
They knew Saddam and bin Laden were not collaborating
In the summer of 2002, USA Today reported White House lawyers had concluded that establishing an Iraq-al Qaeda link would provide the legal cover at the United Nations for the administration to attack Iraq. Such a connection, no doubt, also would provide political capital at home. And so, by the fall of 2002, the Iraq-al Qaeda drumbeat began.
It started on September 25, 2002, when Bush said, “you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.” This was news even to members of Bush’s own political party who had access to classified intelligence. Just a month before, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Saddam is not in league with al Qaeda ‚Ã???¶ I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.
To no surprise, the day after Bush’s statement, USA Today reported several intelligence experts “expressed skepticism” about the claim, with a Pentagon official calling the president’s assertion an “exaggeration.” No matter, Bush ignored these concerns and that day described Saddam Hussein as “a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, Rumsfeld held a press conference trumpeting “bulletproof” evidence of a connection—a sentiment echoed by Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. And while the New York Times noted, “the officials offered no details to back up the assertions,” Rumsfeld nonetheless insisted his claims were “accurate and not debatable.”
Within days, the accusations became more than just “debatable”; they were debunked. German Defense Minister Peter Stuck said the day after Rumsfeld’s press conference that his country “was not aware of any connection” between Iraq and al Qaeda’s efforts to acquire chemical weapons. The Orlando Sentinel reported that terrorism expert Peter Bergen—one of the few to actually interview Osama bin Laden—said the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda are minimal. In October 2002, Knight Ridder reported, “a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in [Bush’s] own government privately have deep misgivings” about the Iraq-al Qaeda claims. The experts charged that administration hawks “exaggerated evidence.” A senior U.S. official told the Philadelphia Inquirer that intelligence analysts “contest the administration’s suggestion of a major link between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
While this evidence forced British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other allies to refrain from playing up an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, the Bush administration refused to be deterred by facts.
On November 1, 2002, President Bush claimed, “We know [Iraq has] got ties with al Qaeda.” Four days later, Europe’s top terrorism investigator Jean-Louis Bruguiere reported: “We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. ‚Ã???¶ If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country was helping build the case for war, admitted, “What I’m asked is if I’ve seen any evidence of [Iraq-al Qaeda connections]. And the answer is: ‘I haven’t.’ ”
Soon, an avalanche of evidence appeared indicating the White House was deliberately misleading America. In January 2003, intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times that they were “puzzled by the administration’s new push” to create the perception of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection and said the intelligence community has “discounted—if not dismissed—information believed to point to possible links between Iraq and al Qaeda.” One intelligence official said, “There isn’t a factual basis” for the administration’s conspiracy theory about the so-called connection.
On the morning of February 5, 2003, the same day Powell delivered his U.N. speech, British intelligence leaked a comprehensive report finding no substantial links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The BBC reported that British intelligence officials maintained “any fledgling relationship [between Iraq and al Qaeda] foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies.” Powell, nonetheless, stood before the United Nations and claimed there was a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda.” A month later, Rice backed him up, saying al Qaeda “clearly has had links to the Iraqis.” And in his March 17, 2003, speech on the eve of war, Bush justified the invasion by citing the fully discredited Iraq-al Qaeda link.
When the war commenced, the house of cards came down. In June 2003, the chairman of the U.N. group that monitors al Qaeda told reporters his team found no evidence linking the terrorist group to Iraq. In July 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported the bipartisan congressional report analyzing September 11 “undercut Bush administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, the New York Times reported, “Coalition forces have not brought to light any significant evidence demonstrating the bond between Iraq and al Qaeda.” In August 2003, three former Bush administration officials came forward to admit pre-war evidence tying al Qaeda to Iraq “was tenuous, exaggerated, and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies.”
Yet, the White House insisted on maintaining the deception. In the fall of 2003, President Bush said, “There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.” And Cheney claimed Iraq “had an established relationship to al Qaeda.” When the media finally began demanding proof for all the allegations, Powell offered a glimmer of contrition. In January 2004, he conceded that there was no “smoking gun” to prove the claim. His admission was soon followed by a March 2004 Knight Ridder report that quoted administration officials conceding “there never was any evidence that Hussein’s secular police state and Osama bin Laden’s Islamic terror network were in league.”
But Powell’s statement was the exception, not the norm. The White House still refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing, and instead resorts to the classic two-step feint, citing sources but conveniently refusing to acknowledge those sources’ critical faults.
For instance, Cheney began pointing reporters to an article in the right-wing Weekly Standard as the “best source” of evidence backing the Saddam-al Qaeda claim, even though the Pentagon had previously discredited the story. Similarly, in June, the Republican’s media spin machine came to the aid of the White House and promoted a New York Times article about a document showing failed efforts by bin Laden to work with Iraq in the mid-’90s against Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, the spinners did not mention the article’s key finding—a Pentagon task force found that the document “described no formal alliance being reached between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence.”
When the 9/11 Commission found “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, the White House denials came as no surprise. Cheney defiantly claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” of a link, provided no evidence, and then berated the media and the commission for having the nerve to report the obvious. Bush did not feel the need to justify his distortions, saying after the report came out, “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
That was the perfect answer from an administration that never lets the factual record impinge on what it says to the American public.
They knew there was no Prague meeting
One of the key pillars of the Iraq-al Qaeda myth was a White House-backed story claiming 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi spy in April 2001. The tale originally came from a lone Czech informant who said he saw the terrorist in Prague at the time. White House hawks, eager to link al Qaeda with Saddam, did not wait to verify the story, and instead immediately used it to punch up arguments for a preemptive attack on Iraq. On November 14, 2001, Cheney claimed Atta was “in Prague in April of this year, as well as earlier.” On December 9, 2001, he went further, claiming without proof that the Atta meeting was “pretty well confirmed.”
Nine days later, the Czech government reported there was no evidence that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. Czech Police Chief Jiri Kolar said there were no documents showing Atta had been in Prague that entire year, and Czech officials told Newsweek that the uncorroborated witness who perpetuated the story should have been viewed with more skepticism.
By the spring of 2002, major news publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek and Time were running stories calling the “Prague connection” an “embarrassing” mistake and stating that, according to European officials, the intelligence supporting the claim was “somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none’.” The stories also quoted administration officials and CIA and FBI analysts saying that on closer scrutiny, “there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the United State at the time he was supposed to be in Prague.” Even FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, a Bush political appointee, admitted in April 2002, “We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts,” but found nothing.
But that was not good enough for the administration, which instead of letting the story go, began trying to manipulate intelligence to turn fantasy into reality. In August 2002, when FBI case officers told Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that there was no Atta meeting, Newsweek reported Wolfowitz “vigorously challenged them.” Wolfowitz wanted the FBI to endorse claims that Atta and the Iraqi spy had met. FBI counterterrorism chief Pat D’Amuro refused.
In September 2002, the CIA handed Cheney a classified intelligence assessment that cast specific, serious doubt on whether the Atta meeting ever occurred. Yet, that same month, Richard Perle, then chairman of the Bush’s Defense Policy Board, said, “Muhammad Atta met [a secret collaborator of Saddam Hussein] prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn’t just there for a holiday.” In the same breath, Perle openly admitted, “The meeting is one of the motives for an American attack on Iraq.”
By the winter of 2002, even America’s allies were telling the administration to relent: In November, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had seen no evidence of a meeting in Prague between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent.
But it did not stop. In September 2003, on “Meet the Press,” Cheney dredged up the story again, saying, “With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack.” He provided no new evidence, opted not to mention that the Czechs long ago had withdrawn the allegations, and ignored new evidence that showed the story was likely untrue.
Even today, with all of the intelligence firmly against him, Cheney remains unrepentant. Asked in June about whether the meeting had occurred, he admitted, “That’s never been proven.” Then he added, “It’s never been refuted.” When CNBC’s Gloria Borger asked about his initial claim that the meeting was “pretty well confirmed,” Cheney snapped, “No, I never said that. I never said that. Absolutely not.”
His actual words in December 2001: “It’s been pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.”
In other words, Cheney hit a new low. He resorted not only to lying about the story, but lying about lying about the story.
Conclusion: They knew they were misleading America
In his March 17, 2003 address preparing America for the Iraq invasion, President Bush stated unequivocally that there was an Iraq-al Qaeda nexus and that there was “no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
In the context of what we now know the White House knew at the time, Bush was deliberately dishonest. The intelligence community repeatedly told the White House there were many deep cracks in its case for war. The president’s willingness to ignore such warnings and make these unequivocal statements proves the administration was intentionally painting a black-and-white picture when it knew the facts merited only gray at best.
That has meant severe consequences for all Americans. Financially, U.S. taxpayers have shelled out more than $166 billion for the Iraq war, and more will soon be needed. Geopolitically, our country is more isolated from allies than ever, with anti-Americanism on the rise throughout the globe.
And we are less secure. A recent U.S. Army War College report says “the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the more narrow focus on defeating al Qaeda.” U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi put it this way: “The war in Iraq was useless, it caused more problems than it solved, and it brought in terrorism.”
These statements are borne out by the facts: The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London reports al Qaeda is now 18,000 strong, with many new recruits joining as a result of the war in Iraq. Not coincidentally, the White House recently said the American homeland faces an imminent threat of a terrorist attack from a still-active al Qaeda operation in Afghanistan. Yet, the administration actually moved special forces out of Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Because of this, we face the absurd situation whereby we have no more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan hunting down those who directly threaten us, yet have 140,000 troops in Iraq—a country that was not a serious menace before invasion.
Of course, it is those troops who have it the worst. Our men and women in uniform are bogged down in a quagmire, forced to lay down life and limb for a lie.
To be sure, neoconservative pundits and Bush administration hawks will continue to blame anyone but the White House for these deceptions. They also will say intelligence gave a bit of credence to some of the pre-war claims, and that is certainly true.
But nothing can negate the clear proof that President Bush and other administration official officials vastly overstated the intelligence they were given. They engaged in a calculated and well-coordinated effort to turn a war of choice in Iraq into a perceived war of imminent necessity.
Oh, it’s Kerry that’s a “flip_flop” on issues, eh?
# Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against nation building; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against deficits; then he’s for them.
# Bush is for free trade; then he’s for tariffs on steel; then he’s against them again.
# Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a “road map” and a Palestinian State.
# Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
# Bush first says he’ll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn’t.
# Bush first says that ‘help is on the way’ to the military … then he cuts benefits
# Bush-”The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush-”I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care.”
# Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
# Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
# Bush first says the U.S. won’t negotiate with North Korea. Now he will
# Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say’s he shouldn’t have.
# Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote
# Bush said the “mission accomplished” banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
# Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he’s against it.
all politicians can be accused for breaking promises and flip-flopping. Kerry has a much bigger history of it, and you can’t blame flip-flopping on bush because he is seen as a “sharp shooter” and, honestly, a bit stubborn.
Notice that last comment didn’t come with a defense or any proof to justify their point. That seems to be the Republican strategy this year – just say something vague that “sounds” good and maybe the voting public will believe it without providing a record of achievement from this president to justify such points.
if that was to me… yeah, I didn’t defend it too well…
btw, i’d vote kerry if i wasn’t years away from voting age
George W. Bush talked about leaving Gay marriage to the states… pssshh, yeah right. that and they somehow destroy america…
Bush also said he wouldn’t touch the social security surplus, then spent it on tax cuts that supposedly help the economy
he hates the tobacco buyout, now he loves it
He even said that he believed it was a womans choice to choose to abort her baby or not… now look at him!
You may have heard Dick Cheney accusing John Kerry of fighting a sensative war… then he said “from the standpoint of the shrine, obviously it is a sensitive area, and we are very much aware of its sensitivity.”… I thought since he hated being sensative, we should just blast the thing up!
Clearly, the two have flipped on many important matters that come up this year “gay marriage, abortion…), but the truth remains that Some of John Kerrys is accused for flip-flopping, he did, indeed change his mind… However, not all
George W. Bush proposed to go to war, and pay for it with Iraqi oil. 3 months later, he came back asking for 89 billion dollars. John Kerry wasn’t impressed by the failure of bush’s plan to use oil, how long after the 89 billion came would he he ask for more? he voted NO, and not he appearently isn’t supporting our troops…
the social security surplus… the extra amount of cash that clinton had made for America that he said should be used for social security. Bush said he wouldn’t spend this surplus, and now its gone.
as for the other things, i just copied and pasted them off of a liberal geocities website. I dont want to put much thought into this, espically after the blind accusations by the leaders of this site that all liberals avoid facts. I decided that it wasn’t worth researching as much just to hopefullly annoy them a bit…
The social security surplus is a myth. In reality all suprlus money from social security is invested in gov bonds and repaid as those bonds mature. The debt remains and will be paid in time and the money has not been spent.
the surplus wasn’t made from Soc. sec, it was going to be used for it…
Taxcuts have pretty much NEVER repaid a debt, there is no sense in this theory, to decrease income and to pay the same on government spending? its rediculus. Of course, the debt will be paid in time if a democrat comes in…
Tax cuts increase economic growth, which increases revenue to the treasury. Democrats and Republicans in congress (not the prez) write a budget that will hopefully pay off debt and cut spending.
What could increase economic growth alot better is raising mininum wage. If you are struggling to buy food and clothing and your bills, you certainly will use the extra money to pay for these necisities, a good way to increase the economic growth.
with taxcuts that give money to the rich, people who can pay for their food, bills, clothing, hell, pretty much anything they want. They dont have to, and usually dont at all, have to spend their new money as rapidly as the poor, higher paid workers…
Sure, raising the minimum wage may help some workers, mostly college students, but causes employers to lay off others to cover the costs. Raising the minimum wage is always a negative for growth.
Bush’s tax cuts went to all tax payers, not just the rich.
Censor you have way to much time on your hands and whats funny is your still twisted on your view. Somebody shed some light on this area for me please…..Ummmm am i the only person in the U.S. that understands this but did anybody ever consider that Bush was Lied TO?????? No, of course not since Bush is the Anti-Christ in most liberals eye’s there is no way that is possible right Zoot??? And correct me if i am wrong but wasnt the war hero himself on the Security Council himself that agreed to go to war?? Hmmm?? ok if anybody responds leave this out, i understand that John Kerry said he supported going to war with Bush but dosent like the way he handled it, i understand that so dont bag on that the whole time. But my question to everybody is how did Bush lie he had many agencies/councils/people etc.. telling him that their was WMD and terroristic threats in Iraq. Did we go 2 Iraq for the sole purpose of rooting out terrorism?? probally not but so what quit whinning about it. We are an Oil Economy another words (saying it like Bush says it, LOL) we need oil to succesfully run. Hopefully by now yall see my point, quit spazzing out over little irrelavant things and focus on the big picture. Is the world better off without Saddam? yes. Is Iraq better off without Saddam ? yes. Did Bush lie to the country to the World?? In my opnion no. He was misled, he made a mistake on certain topics thanks to the smooth running C.I.A and other agencies. I understand a Democratic President has never made a mistake while in office and i understand that 9/11 happened to every Democratic President and that handled it perfectly but lets try and be understanding by realizing that (as of now) the U.S is still the best country to live in.
Forgive my typos, i look forward to some hopefully intelligent responses and GOD Bless!
Our form of government is a NOT FOR PROFIT government. We should NEVER run a surplus. If our budget has a surplus, they are taking too much money from the tax-payers. Therefore a taxcut is in order. We are not socialists therefore we cannot hand-pick the tax-payers to benefit from a taxcut. The poorest 5% did not recieve a taxcut. Mr. Kerry correctly pointed that out. However….the poorest 5% in this country get back far more than they pay in anyway, when “earned income credit” is taken into account. Now there’s an oxymoron, “Earned income credit”!
oooh, are your feeling hurt? why don’t you implement a loyalty oath in order to post? As to Zack, yes, we can hand pick who gets a tax cut, Bush did that with his cuts. the top 1:5 got the overwhelming majortiy of the cut, Are you accusing Bush of being a socialist? If Clinton gave himself a $75,000 dollar tax cut you kind gentle conservatives would have tried to impeach him, for good reason.
bob with a little b should get his facts straight. Yes the top percentages got a larger dollar share of the tax cut but they ended up paying a larger percentage of the overall taxes after the cut then before. This means the larger percentage of the cuts went to the middle class. (the poor don’t pay taxes so hence no cut)
Hey jd,
Sounds like fuzzy math to me, they get a bigger cut but end up paying more? are you sure yer not a liberal? But at least bushes policies make sense now, we bomb the shit out of Iraq to save it. We bring back accountablity by holding one one accountable, we implent a clean air policy that causes more pollution. we offer tax cuts to create 5 million jobs and lose 1 million instead.
By the way, in real terms, the poor do pay taxes: sales tax, which takes a much bigger bite out of their income, percentage wise than the rich. and the poor pay sales tax on stuff they need, like gas, and cars and clothes, etc. And as bush’s tax cuts cut into state revenues sales taxes are going to get worse. get your facts straight.
Responding to: ” I guess the writer thinks it was not a good thing to go to war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”
Hey, I wanted Bush to get off his @$$ and search for Bin Laden right away after 9/11. But all he did for practically a solid month was tell us how he was going after OBL, he could run but he can’t hide, blah blah blah. Of course, at the time, few of us had any idea that OBL’s family was tight with the Bushes, so of course Georgie had to give OBL a head start to escape with his dialysis machine. Just like his father, Bush starts wars he can’t finish. You may think it’s just liberals against the war, but moderates like me are against Bush’s incompetent handling of anything remotely resembling war. I’ve still got the T-shirt of Uncle Sam saying, “Osama bin Laden, I want your @$$”. Unfortunately, the decal is almost completely worn off and we STILL don’t have OBL.
Thanks for nothing, Bush. You’re a wimp and a sissy just like your father. Try finishing one war before starting another, m’kay?
You give Bush way too much credit; he did not make all and/or do all these things without the help of the government…and the last I knew “the government was you and me, baby”.
decruz Says: August 22nd, 2004 at 12:04 am
I was wondering if I could put up this image on my website.. Is that ok with you? If I give you credit?
Admin Says: August 22nd, 2004 at 2:01 am
Sure that’s fine. One of our readers just sent this in. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. Nice site!
bushisacrook Says: August 22nd, 2004 at 3:21 am
GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I attacked and took over two countries.
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 2-month period.
I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The ‘poorest’ multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
< PERSONAL>For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
Emory Says: August 22nd, 2004 at 3:34 am
Number one is telling. I guess the writer thinks it was not a good thing to go to war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Brandon Says: August 22nd, 2004 at 4:04 am
Yes, I agree, too. #1 is obvious. Although it looks like there are a few that are a little hard to defend. Damn libs.
zoot potatoe Says: August 24th, 2004 at 2:57 am
wow, bushisacrook, someone just told you off by plucking 11 things from your list then blaming them on someone else
Joe N Says: August 24th, 2004 at 4:12 am
this is why i laugh at liberals
haha
no really, let’s go back in time and NOT attack Afghanistan and Iraq. Let the ol’ libs see how much “better off” the world (according to them) would be.
censor Says: August 24th, 2004 at 2:25 pm
Emory/Brandon/Joe N:
You guys are totally Right! We were attact and rightfully retaliated. I’ve taken your points and amended bushisacrook’s post. This should be more to your liking:
GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME (ammended)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 2-month period.
I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
censor Says: August 24th, 2004 at 2:29 pm
PS. I’m sure you will have an intelligent and thoughtful response to the above post, and will not simply resort to pointing out my typo. (Attact = attacked)
censor Says: August 24th, 2004 at 3:23 pm
Ooh, thanks Buck, I missed a few!
GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME (the undisputed points!)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
I presided over the worst security failure in US history. (see 9/11 commission report but actually read it not somebody’s gist of it)
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
–In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.– yes these are (mostly) balanced by 1.5M new jobs, but these new jobs pay on average 9k less p.a. than those lost. Do you want to take a $9,000 drop in pay?
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for the most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
–I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.– Yes a majority vote is needed, all you need to do is lie convincingly enough.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history. (thank God we got rid of that old, outdated nuclear (Nuke-u-ler) non-proliferation treaty, environmental protection treaties etc.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history. Seriously dude a joke is not an arugment.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community. (we now know we were deliberaly misled, and despite constant advice from our numerous intelligence agencies and the UN (to name a few) we invaded Iraq anyway. This one stays)
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war. (I thought Bush was a uniter, not a divider) hmm)
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one.)
Joe N Says: August 24th, 2004 at 4:03 pm
you guys are freaking lame, seriously.
why don’t you spend some time doing research on good ol’ John Kerry and his coharts.
censor Says: August 24th, 2004 at 5:03 pm
Please Joe, Enlighten us…
-I know he didn’t throw his medals.
-Some doubt has been cast on whether or not he deserved all his medals (although offical records and all but one of his -surviving shipmates corrobate his story. Even the offical records of his critics (who watched things happen from another boat) support his story.
-In his many many years as a senator he never put forward any bills which some feel cast doubts about his vision as a leader
-He voted in support for the iraq war but claims he thought the invasion decision would have been made with more discresion, should the need arrive)
-He is a liberal, which carries with it a number of ideals forign to many conservatives.
-Kerry can be pursuaded by an arguemnt (apparently called flip-flopping) In other words, he is not stubborn, and won’t support a personal agenda whatever the cost.
-taxes will go up because he believes in basic human rights and responsable spending
-he voted against plunging the nation billions of dollars further into debt while simutaniouly cutting taxes further.
In addition to the above, He has a number of policies I disagree with however unless you give me some very good reasons why we would be better off with our ignorant warmonger, my center-right vote goes to Kerry.
zoot potato Says: August 24th, 2004 at 5:03 pm
lol, and the maker of this site DOESN”T research politics…. while it may be hard to tell, (no, he does a good job, its not just liberals…
Joe N Says: August 25th, 2004 at 4:59 am
1. Kerry passed 300+ laws in Mass. 99% of those laws were CEREMONIAL. That HARDLY makes him anywhere near fit to lead a country. (For those of you who have no clue what a ceremonial law is, they include re-naming of streets, opening of bridges etc.)
2. Kerry’s stance on nearly every major subject has changed to suit his campaigns needs.
3. Kerry’s efforts in the war (whether true or not) pale im comparison to his actions when he returned from Vietnam.
4. Kerry will not only cut military spending but also our defense. In times like this, that is NOT something we can afford to do.
I find it funny that people can call Bush a “warmongerer” when he is only doing what is best for both the US and the Middle East.
If anyone for one second thinks that it was best to leave Sadaam Hussein in power either needs to consult their Bible and learn the basics of how to treat another human being or they flat out are just ignorant.
censor Says: August 25th, 2004 at 10:03 am
Your 4 points are certainly valid points, however the pale in comparison to the laundry list of complaints posted above. I agree that Saddam was not a nice guy, Who should we overthrow next? Saudi Arabia(oh, they are friends of ours so they don’t count)? China? North Korea? Israil(oops!) Every single government who we don’t agree with? Some history for you friend. The US has a long history of supporting these individuals. The US has even, on numerous occasions put tyrants into power. Saddam was once a US alli, as Was Osama Bin Laden. Hell We sold both of them weapons, even some of those nasty ones nobody seems to talk about. Once they had served their purpose they were promptly forgotten about. The state we left Saddam in was a leading cause of the invasion of kuait.
Why do I call Bush a warmonger? Because he lied to you, to me, to the media, to the UN. The only difference between you and me is you still cling to their last resort justification. Mission Accomplished: and we are the most hated we have ever been, alqueda is growing faster than ever. It’s nice to know our president so well served our interests. The WMD claims were BS, Al queda ties were BS and they knew it.
censor Says: August 25th, 2004 at 10:05 am
As the 9/11 Commission recently reported, there was “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Similarly, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting in an election year, the White House is grasping at straws to avoid being held accountable for its dishonesty.
The whitewash already has started: In July, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report blaming the CIA for the mess. The panel conveniently refuses to evaluate what the White House did with the information it was given or how the White House set up its own special team of Pentagon political appointees (called the Office of Special Plans) to circumvent well-established intelligence channels. And Vice President Dick Cheney continues to say without a shred of proof that there is “overwhelming evidence” justifying the administration’s pre-war charges.
But as author Flannery O’Conner noted, “Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” That means no matter how much defensive spin spews from the White House, the Bush administration cannot escape the documented fact that it was clearly warned before the war that its rationale for invading Iraq was weak.
Top administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their assertions about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and connections to al Qaeda were overstated. In some cases, they were told their claims were wholly without merit, yet they went ahead and made them anyway. Even the Senate report admits that the White House “misrepresented” classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions.
In short, they knew they were misleading America.
And they did not care.
They knew Iraq posed no nuclear threat
There is no doubt even though there was no proof of Iraq’s complicity, the White House was focused on Iraq within hours of the 9/11 attacks. As CBS News reported, “barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.” Former Bush counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke recounted vividly how, just after the attack, President Bush pressured him to find an Iraqi connection. In many ways, this was no surprise—as former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and another administration official confirmed, the White House was actually looking for a way to invade Iraq well before the terrorist attacks.
But such an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country required a public rationale. And so the Bush administration struck fear into the hearts of Americans about Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMD, starting with nuclear arms. In his first major address on the “Iraqi threat” in October 2002, President Bush invoked fiery images of mushroom clouds and mayhem, saying, “Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”
Yet, before that speech, the White House had intelligence calling this assertion into question. A 1997 report by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the agency whose purpose is to prevent nuclear proliferation—stated there was no indication Iraq ever achieved nuclear capability or had any physical capacity for producing weapons-grade nuclear material in the near future.
In February 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House that said: “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs.” The report was so definitive that Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a subsequent press conference, Saddam Hussein “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”
Ten months before the president’s speech, an intelligence review by CIA Director George Tenet contained not a single mention of an imminent nuclear threat—or capability—from Iraq. The CIA was backed up by Bush’s own State Department: Around the time Bush gave his speech, the department’s intelligence bureau said that evidence did not “add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what [we] consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Nonetheless, the administration continued to push forward. In March 2003, Cheney went on national television days before the war and claimed Iraq “has reconstituted nuclear weapons.” He was echoed by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who told reporters of supposedly grave “concerns about Iraq’s potential nuclear programs.”
Even after the invasion, when troops failed to uncover any evidence of nuclear weapons, the White House refused to admit the truth. In July 2003, Condoleezza Rice told PBS’s Gwen Ifill that the administration’s nuclear assertions were “absolutely supportable.” That same month, White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted: “There’s a lot of evidence showing that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”
They knew the aluminum tubes were not for nuclear weapons
To back up claims that Iraq was actively trying to build nuclear weapons, the administration referred to Iraq’s importation of aluminum tubes, which Bush officials said were for enriching uranium. In December 2002, Powell said, “Iraq has tried to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes which can be used to enrich uranium in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program.” Similarly, in his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said Iraq “has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
But, in October 2002, well before these and other administration officials made this claim, two key agencies told the White House exactly the opposite. The State Department affirmed reports from Energy Department experts who concluded those tubes were ill-suited for any kind of uranium enrichment. And according to memos released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the State Department also warned Powell not to use the aluminum tubes hypothesis in the days before his February 2003 U.N. speech. He refused and used the aluminum tubes claim anyway.
The State Department’s warnings were soon validated by the IAEA. In March 2003, the agency’s director stated, “Iraq’s efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to be related” to nuclear weapons deployment.
Yet, this evidence did not stop the White House either. Pretending the administration never received any warnings at all, Rice claimed in July 2003 that “the consensus view” in the intelligence community was that the tubes “were suitable for use in centrifuges to spin material for nuclear weapons.”
Today, experts agree the administration’s aluminum tube claims were wholly without merit.
They knew the Iraq-uranium claims were not supported
In one of the most famous statements about Iraq’s supposed nuclear arsenals, Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The careful phrasing of this statement highlights how dishonest it was. By attributing the claim to an allied government, the White House made a powerful charge yet protected itself against any consequences should it be proved false. In fact, the president invoked the British because his own intelligence experts had earlier warned the White House not to make the claim at all.
In the fall of 2002, the CIA told administration officials not to include this uranium assertion in presidential speeches. Specifically, the agency sent two memos to the White House and Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use the claim. While the warnings forced the White House to remove a uranium reference from an October 2002 presidential address, they did not stop the charge from being included in the 2003 State of the Union.
Not surprisingly, evidence soon emerged that forced the White House to admit the deception. In March 2003, IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei said there was no proof Iraq had nuclear weapons and added “documents which formed the basis for [the White House’s assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.” But when Cheney was asked about this a week later, he said, “Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong.”
Bush and Rice both tried to blame the CIA for the failure, saying the assertion “was cleared by the intelligence services.” When the intelligence agency produced the memos it had sent to the White House on the subject, Rice didn’t miss a beat, telling Meet The Press “it is quite possible that I didn’t” read the memos at all—as if they were “optional” reading for the nation’s top national security official on the eve of war. At about this time, some high-level administration official or officials leaked to the press that Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife was an undercover CIA agent—a move widely seen as an attempt by the administration to punish Wilson for his July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed that stated he had found no evidence of an Iraqi effort to purchase uranium from Niger.
In recent weeks, right-wing pundits have pointed to new evidence showing the Iraq uranium charge may have flirted with the truth at some point in the distant past. These White House hatchet men say the administration did not manipulate or cherry-pick intelligence. They also tout the recent British report (a.k.a. The Butler Report) as defending the president’s uranium claim. Yet, if the White House did not cherry-pick or manipulate intelligence, why did the president trumpet U.S. intelligence from a foreign government while ignoring explicit warnings not to do so from his own? The record shows U.S. intelligence officials explicitly warned the White House that “the Brits have exaggerated this issue.” Yet, the administration refused to listen. Even The Butler Report itself acknowledges the evidence is cloudy. As nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently pointed out, “The claim appears shaky at best—hardly the stuff that should make up presidential decisions.”
But now, instead of contrition, Republicans are insisting the White House’s uranium charge was accurate. Indeed, these apologists have no option but to try to distract public attention from the simple truth that not a shred of solid evidence exists to substantiate this key charge that fueled the push for war.
They knew there was no hard evidence of chemical or biological weapons
In September 2002, President Bush said Iraq “could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” The next month, he delivered a major speech to “outline the Iraqi threat,” just two days before a critical U.N. vote. In his address, he claimed without doubt that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” He said that “Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons” and that the government was “concerned Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.”
What he did not say was that the White House had been explicitly warned that these assertions were unproved.
As the Washington Post later reported, Bush “ignored the fact that U.S. intelligence mistrusted the source” of the 45-minute claim and, therefore, omitted it from its intelligence estimates. And Bush ignored the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency previously submitted a report to the administration finding “no reliable information” to prove Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons. According to Newsweek, the conclusion was similar to the findings of a 1998 government commission on WMD chaired by Rumsfeld.
Bush also neglected to point out that in early October 2002, the administration’s top military experts told the White House they “sharply disputed the notion that Iraq’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were being designed as attack weapons.” Specifically, the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center correctly showed the drones in question were too heavy to be used to deploy chemical/biological-weapons spray devices.
Regardless, the chemical/biological weapons claims from the administration continued to escalate. Powell told the United Nations on February 5, 2003, “There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.” As proof, he cited aerial images of a supposed decontamination vehicle circling a suspected weapons site.
According to newly released documents in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Powell’s own top intelligence experts told him not to make such claims about the photographs. They said the vehicles were likely water trucks. He ignored their warnings.
On March 6, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, the president went further than Powell. He claimed, “Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents.”
To date, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in Iraq.
They knew Saddam and bin Laden were not collaborating
In the summer of 2002, USA Today reported White House lawyers had concluded that establishing an Iraq-al Qaeda link would provide the legal cover at the United Nations for the administration to attack Iraq. Such a connection, no doubt, also would provide political capital at home. And so, by the fall of 2002, the Iraq-al Qaeda drumbeat began.
It started on September 25, 2002, when Bush said, “you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.” This was news even to members of Bush’s own political party who had access to classified intelligence. Just a month before, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Saddam is not in league with al Qaeda ‚Ã???¶ I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.
To no surprise, the day after Bush’s statement, USA Today reported several intelligence experts “expressed skepticism” about the claim, with a Pentagon official calling the president’s assertion an “exaggeration.” No matter, Bush ignored these concerns and that day described Saddam Hussein as “a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, Rumsfeld held a press conference trumpeting “bulletproof” evidence of a connection—a sentiment echoed by Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. And while the New York Times noted, “the officials offered no details to back up the assertions,” Rumsfeld nonetheless insisted his claims were “accurate and not debatable.”
Within days, the accusations became more than just “debatable”; they were debunked. German Defense Minister Peter Stuck said the day after Rumsfeld’s press conference that his country “was not aware of any connection” between Iraq and al Qaeda’s efforts to acquire chemical weapons. The Orlando Sentinel reported that terrorism expert Peter Bergen—one of the few to actually interview Osama bin Laden—said the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda are minimal. In October 2002, Knight Ridder reported, “a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in [Bush’s] own government privately have deep misgivings” about the Iraq-al Qaeda claims. The experts charged that administration hawks “exaggerated evidence.” A senior U.S. official told the Philadelphia Inquirer that intelligence analysts “contest the administration’s suggestion of a major link between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
While this evidence forced British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other allies to refrain from playing up an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, the Bush administration refused to be deterred by facts.
On November 1, 2002, President Bush claimed, “We know [Iraq has] got ties with al Qaeda.” Four days later, Europe’s top terrorism investigator Jean-Louis Bruguiere reported: “We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. ‚Ã???¶ If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country was helping build the case for war, admitted, “What I’m asked is if I’ve seen any evidence of [Iraq-al Qaeda connections]. And the answer is: ‘I haven’t.’ ”
Soon, an avalanche of evidence appeared indicating the White House was deliberately misleading America. In January 2003, intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times that they were “puzzled by the administration’s new push” to create the perception of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection and said the intelligence community has “discounted—if not dismissed—information believed to point to possible links between Iraq and al Qaeda.” One intelligence official said, “There isn’t a factual basis” for the administration’s conspiracy theory about the so-called connection.
On the morning of February 5, 2003, the same day Powell delivered his U.N. speech, British intelligence leaked a comprehensive report finding no substantial links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The BBC reported that British intelligence officials maintained “any fledgling relationship [between Iraq and al Qaeda] foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies.” Powell, nonetheless, stood before the United Nations and claimed there was a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda.” A month later, Rice backed him up, saying al Qaeda “clearly has had links to the Iraqis.” And in his March 17, 2003, speech on the eve of war, Bush justified the invasion by citing the fully discredited Iraq-al Qaeda link.
When the war commenced, the house of cards came down. In June 2003, the chairman of the U.N. group that monitors al Qaeda told reporters his team found no evidence linking the terrorist group to Iraq. In July 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported the bipartisan congressional report analyzing September 11 “undercut Bush administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, the New York Times reported, “Coalition forces have not brought to light any significant evidence demonstrating the bond between Iraq and al Qaeda.” In August 2003, three former Bush administration officials came forward to admit pre-war evidence tying al Qaeda to Iraq “was tenuous, exaggerated, and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies.”
Yet, the White House insisted on maintaining the deception. In the fall of 2003, President Bush said, “There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.” And Cheney claimed Iraq “had an established relationship to al Qaeda.” When the media finally began demanding proof for all the allegations, Powell offered a glimmer of contrition. In January 2004, he conceded that there was no “smoking gun” to prove the claim. His admission was soon followed by a March 2004 Knight Ridder report that quoted administration officials conceding “there never was any evidence that Hussein’s secular police state and Osama bin Laden’s Islamic terror network were in league.”
But Powell’s statement was the exception, not the norm. The White House still refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing, and instead resorts to the classic two-step feint, citing sources but conveniently refusing to acknowledge those sources’ critical faults.
For instance, Cheney began pointing reporters to an article in the right-wing Weekly Standard as the “best source” of evidence backing the Saddam-al Qaeda claim, even though the Pentagon had previously discredited the story. Similarly, in June, the Republican’s media spin machine came to the aid of the White House and promoted a New York Times article about a document showing failed efforts by bin Laden to work with Iraq in the mid-’90s against Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, the spinners did not mention the article’s key finding—a Pentagon task force found that the document “described no formal alliance being reached between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence.”
When the 9/11 Commission found “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, the White House denials came as no surprise. Cheney defiantly claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” of a link, provided no evidence, and then berated the media and the commission for having the nerve to report the obvious. Bush did not feel the need to justify his distortions, saying after the report came out, “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
That was the perfect answer from an administration that never lets the factual record impinge on what it says to the American public.
They knew there was no Prague meeting
One of the key pillars of the Iraq-al Qaeda myth was a White House-backed story claiming 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi spy in April 2001. The tale originally came from a lone Czech informant who said he saw the terrorist in Prague at the time. White House hawks, eager to link al Qaeda with Saddam, did not wait to verify the story, and instead immediately used it to punch up arguments for a preemptive attack on Iraq. On November 14, 2001, Cheney claimed Atta was “in Prague in April of this year, as well as earlier.” On December 9, 2001, he went further, claiming without proof that the Atta meeting was “pretty well confirmed.”
Nine days later, the Czech government reported there was no evidence that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. Czech Police Chief Jiri Kolar said there were no documents showing Atta had been in Prague that entire year, and Czech officials told Newsweek that the uncorroborated witness who perpetuated the story should have been viewed with more skepticism.
By the spring of 2002, major news publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek and Time were running stories calling the “Prague connection” an “embarrassing” mistake and stating that, according to European officials, the intelligence supporting the claim was “somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none’.” The stories also quoted administration officials and CIA and FBI analysts saying that on closer scrutiny, “there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the United State at the time he was supposed to be in Prague.” Even FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, a Bush political appointee, admitted in April 2002, “We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts,” but found nothing.
But that was not good enough for the administration, which instead of letting the story go, began trying to manipulate intelligence to turn fantasy into reality. In August 2002, when FBI case officers told Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that there was no Atta meeting, Newsweek reported Wolfowitz “vigorously challenged them.” Wolfowitz wanted the FBI to endorse claims that Atta and the Iraqi spy had met. FBI counterterrorism chief Pat D’Amuro refused.
In September 2002, the CIA handed Cheney a classified intelligence assessment that cast specific, serious doubt on whether the Atta meeting ever occurred. Yet, that same month, Richard Perle, then chairman of the Bush’s Defense Policy Board, said, “Muhammad Atta met [a secret collaborator of Saddam Hussein] prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn’t just there for a holiday.” In the same breath, Perle openly admitted, “The meeting is one of the motives for an American attack on Iraq.”
By the winter of 2002, even America’s allies were telling the administration to relent: In November, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had seen no evidence of a meeting in Prague between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent.
But it did not stop. In September 2003, on “Meet the Press,” Cheney dredged up the story again, saying, “With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack.” He provided no new evidence, opted not to mention that the Czechs long ago had withdrawn the allegations, and ignored new evidence that showed the story was likely untrue.
Even today, with all of the intelligence firmly against him, Cheney remains unrepentant. Asked in June about whether the meeting had occurred, he admitted, “That’s never been proven.” Then he added, “It’s never been refuted.” When CNBC’s Gloria Borger asked about his initial claim that the meeting was “pretty well confirmed,” Cheney snapped, “No, I never said that. I never said that. Absolutely not.”
His actual words in December 2001: “It’s been pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.”
In other words, Cheney hit a new low. He resorted not only to lying about the story, but lying about lying about the story.
Conclusion: They knew they were misleading America
In his March 17, 2003 address preparing America for the Iraq invasion, President Bush stated unequivocally that there was an Iraq-al Qaeda nexus and that there was “no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
In the context of what we now know the White House knew at the time, Bush was deliberately dishonest. The intelligence community repeatedly told the White House there were many deep cracks in its case for war. The president’s willingness to ignore such warnings and make these unequivocal statements proves the administration was intentionally painting a black-and-white picture when it knew the facts merited only gray at best.
That has meant severe consequences for all Americans. Financially, U.S. taxpayers have shelled out more than $166 billion for the Iraq war, and more will soon be needed. Geopolitically, our country is more isolated from allies than ever, with anti-Americanism on the rise throughout the globe.
And we are less secure. A recent U.S. Army War College report says “the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the more narrow focus on defeating al Qaeda.” U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi put it this way: “The war in Iraq was useless, it caused more problems than it solved, and it brought in terrorism.”
These statements are borne out by the facts: The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London reports al Qaeda is now 18,000 strong, with many new recruits joining as a result of the war in Iraq. Not coincidentally, the White House recently said the American homeland faces an imminent threat of a terrorist attack from a still-active al Qaeda operation in Afghanistan. Yet, the administration actually moved special forces out of Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Because of this, we face the absurd situation whereby we have no more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan hunting down those who directly threaten us, yet have 140,000 troops in Iraq—a country that was not a serious menace before invasion.
Of course, it is those troops who have it the worst. Our men and women in uniform are bogged down in a quagmire, forced to lay down life and limb for a lie.
To be sure, neoconservative pundits and Bush administration hawks will continue to blame anyone but the White House for these deceptions. They also will say intelligence gave a bit of credence to some of the pre-war claims, and that is certainly true.
But nothing can negate the clear proof that President Bush and other administration official officials vastly overstated the intelligence they were given. They engaged in a calculated and well-coordinated effort to turn a war of choice in Iraq into a perceived war of imminent necessity.
And we are all left paying the price.
brandon Says: August 26th, 2004 at 2:24 am
Oh, it’s Kerry that’s a “flip_flop” on issues, eh?
# Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against nation building; then he’s for it.
# Bush is against deficits; then he’s for them.
# Bush is for free trade; then he’s for tariffs on steel; then he’s against them again.
# Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a “road map” and a Palestinian State.
# Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
# Bush first says he’ll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn’t.
# Bush first says that ‘help is on the way’ to the military … then he cuts benefits
# Bush-”The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush-”I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care.”
# Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
# Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
# Bush first says the U.S. won’t negotiate with North Korea. Now he will
# Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say’s he shouldn’t have.
# Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote
# Bush said the “mission accomplished” banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
# Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he’s against it.
zoot potatoe Says: August 26th, 2004 at 9:33 pm
all politicians can be accused for breaking promises and flip-flopping. Kerry has a much bigger history of it, and you can’t blame flip-flopping on bush because he is seen as a “sharp shooter” and, honestly, a bit stubborn.
Brandon Says: August 30th, 2004 at 7:44 pm
Notice that last comment didn’t come with a defense or any proof to justify their point. That seems to be the Republican strategy this year – just say something vague that “sounds” good and maybe the voting public will believe it without providing a record of achievement from this president to justify such points.
zoot potatoe Says: September 1st, 2004 at 12:41 am
if that was to me… yeah, I didn’t defend it too well…
btw, i’d vote kerry if i wasn’t years away from voting age
George W. Bush talked about leaving Gay marriage to the states… pssshh, yeah right. that and they somehow destroy america…
Bush also said he wouldn’t touch the social security surplus, then spent it on tax cuts that supposedly help the economy
he hates the tobacco buyout, now he loves it
He even said that he believed it was a womans choice to choose to abort her baby or not… now look at him!
You may have heard Dick Cheney accusing John Kerry of fighting a sensative war… then he said “from the standpoint of the shrine, obviously it is a sensitive area, and we are very much aware of its sensitivity.”… I thought since he hated being sensative, we should just blast the thing up!
Clearly, the two have flipped on many important matters that come up this year “gay marriage, abortion…), but the truth remains that Some of John Kerrys is accused for flip-flopping, he did, indeed change his mind… However, not all
George W. Bush proposed to go to war, and pay for it with Iraqi oil. 3 months later, he came back asking for 89 billion dollars. John Kerry wasn’t impressed by the failure of bush’s plan to use oil, how long after the 89 billion came would he he ask for more? he voted NO, and not he appearently isn’t supporting our troops…
Emory Says: September 1st, 2004 at 2:32 am
Zoot, fact check… wasn’t it Cheney that talked about leaving gay marriage to the states? What social security surplus? Nice try on the shrine quote
zoot potatoe Says: September 1st, 2004 at 8:42 pm
the social security surplus… the extra amount of cash that clinton had made for America that he said should be used for social security. Bush said he wouldn’t spend this surplus, and now its gone.
as for the other things, i just copied and pasted them off of a liberal geocities website. I dont want to put much thought into this, espically after the blind accusations by the leaders of this site that all liberals avoid facts. I decided that it wasn’t worth researching as much just to hopefullly annoy them a bit…
Jon Daly Says: September 2nd, 2004 at 9:16 pm
The social security surplus is a myth. In reality all suprlus money from social security is invested in gov bonds and repaid as those bonds mature. The debt remains and will be paid in time and the money has not been spent.
zoot potatoe Says: September 2nd, 2004 at 11:14 pm
the surplus wasn’t made from Soc. sec, it was going to be used for it…
Taxcuts have pretty much NEVER repaid a debt, there is no sense in this theory, to decrease income and to pay the same on government spending? its rediculus. Of course, the debt will be paid in time if a democrat comes in…
Emory Says: September 2nd, 2004 at 11:40 pm
Tax cuts increase economic growth, which increases revenue to the treasury. Democrats and Republicans in congress (not the prez) write a budget that will hopefully pay off debt and cut spending.
zoot potatoe Says: September 2nd, 2004 at 11:43 pm
What could increase economic growth alot better is raising mininum wage. If you are struggling to buy food and clothing and your bills, you certainly will use the extra money to pay for these necisities, a good way to increase the economic growth.
with taxcuts that give money to the rich, people who can pay for their food, bills, clothing, hell, pretty much anything they want. They dont have to, and usually dont at all, have to spend their new money as rapidly as the poor, higher paid workers…
Emory Says: September 2nd, 2004 at 11:51 pm
Sure, raising the minimum wage may help some workers, mostly college students, but causes employers to lay off others to cover the costs. Raising the minimum wage is always a negative for growth.
Bush’s tax cuts went to all tax payers, not just the rich.
Maverick Says: September 28th, 2004 at 3:02 pm
Censor you have way to much time on your hands and whats funny is your still twisted on your view. Somebody shed some light on this area for me please…..Ummmm am i the only person in the U.S. that understands this but did anybody ever consider that Bush was Lied TO?????? No, of course not since Bush is the Anti-Christ in most liberals eye’s there is no way that is possible right Zoot??? And correct me if i am wrong but wasnt the war hero himself on the Security Council himself that agreed to go to war?? Hmmm?? ok if anybody responds leave this out, i understand that John Kerry said he supported going to war with Bush but dosent like the way he handled it, i understand that so dont bag on that the whole time. But my question to everybody is how did Bush lie he had many agencies/councils/people etc.. telling him that their was WMD and terroristic threats in Iraq. Did we go 2 Iraq for the sole purpose of rooting out terrorism?? probally not but so what quit whinning about it. We are an Oil Economy another words (saying it like Bush says it, LOL) we need oil to succesfully run. Hopefully by now yall see my point, quit spazzing out over little irrelavant things and focus on the big picture. Is the world better off without Saddam? yes. Is Iraq better off without Saddam ? yes. Did Bush lie to the country to the World?? In my opnion no. He was misled, he made a mistake on certain topics thanks to the smooth running C.I.A and other agencies. I understand a Democratic President has never made a mistake while in office and i understand that 9/11 happened to every Democratic President and that handled it perfectly but lets try and be understanding by realizing that (as of now) the U.S is still the best country to live in.
Forgive my typos, i look forward to some hopefully intelligent responses and GOD Bless!
zack Says: October 2nd, 2004 at 3:16 am
Our form of government is a NOT FOR PROFIT government. We should NEVER run a surplus. If our budget has a surplus, they are taking too much money from the tax-payers. Therefore a taxcut is in order. We are not socialists therefore we cannot hand-pick the tax-payers to benefit from a taxcut. The poorest 5% did not recieve a taxcut. Mr. Kerry correctly pointed that out. However….the poorest 5% in this country get back far more than they pay in anyway, when “earned income credit” is taken into account. Now there’s an oxymoron, “Earned income credit”!
JD Says: October 3rd, 2004 at 12:46 am
I am surprised at the number of liberals who visit this site. Makes you wonder why. They are a nasty bunch for the most part. Alot of bitterness.
bob Says: October 3rd, 2004 at 1:52 am
oooh, are your feeling hurt? why don’t you implement a loyalty oath in order to post? As to Zack, yes, we can hand pick who gets a tax cut, Bush did that with his cuts. the top 1:5 got the overwhelming majortiy of the cut, Are you accusing Bush of being a socialist? If Clinton gave himself a $75,000 dollar tax cut you kind gentle conservatives would have tried to impeach him, for good reason.
Bob Says: October 3rd, 2004 at 2:58 am
Q: How many Liberals does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Light bulb?!?! Geez, those moral degenrates will screw anywhere!!
jd Says: October 3rd, 2004 at 10:23 pm
bob with a little b should get his facts straight. Yes the top percentages got a larger dollar share of the tax cut but they ended up paying a larger percentage of the overall taxes after the cut then before. This means the larger percentage of the cuts went to the middle class. (the poor don’t pay taxes so hence no cut)
bob Says: October 4th, 2004 at 12:33 am
Hey jd,
Sounds like fuzzy math to me, they get a bigger cut but end up paying more? are you sure yer not a liberal? But at least bushes policies make sense now, we bomb the shit out of Iraq to save it. We bring back accountablity by holding one one accountable, we implent a clean air policy that causes more pollution. we offer tax cuts to create 5 million jobs and lose 1 million instead.
By the way, in real terms, the poor do pay taxes: sales tax, which takes a much bigger bite out of their income, percentage wise than the rich. and the poor pay sales tax on stuff they need, like gas, and cars and clothes, etc. And as bush’s tax cuts cut into state revenues sales taxes are going to get worse. get your facts straight.
Proud Democrat Says: October 12th, 2004 at 6:53 am
Responding to: ” I guess the writer thinks it was not a good thing to go to war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”
Hey, I wanted Bush to get off his @$$ and search for Bin Laden right away after 9/11. But all he did for practically a solid month was tell us how he was going after OBL, he could run but he can’t hide, blah blah blah. Of course, at the time, few of us had any idea that OBL’s family was tight with the Bushes, so of course Georgie had to give OBL a head start to escape with his dialysis machine. Just like his father, Bush starts wars he can’t finish. You may think it’s just liberals against the war, but moderates like me are against Bush’s incompetent handling of anything remotely resembling war. I’ve still got the T-shirt of Uncle Sam saying, “Osama bin Laden, I want your @$$”. Unfortunately, the decal is almost completely worn off and we STILL don’t have OBL.
Thanks for nothing, Bush. You’re a wimp and a sissy just like your father. Try finishing one war before starting another, m’kay?
Emory Says: October 12th, 2004 at 7:13 am
I don’t suppose Bill Clinton would be a “wimp and a sissy” for not finishing his attack on bin Laden.
Jake Jones Says: October 12th, 2004 at 3:49 pm
Clinton may have been blown, but Bush sucks.
Some Fellow Says: October 18th, 2004 at 1:34 am
“I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.”
Yeah, actually… that was called the Great Depression. You know, back in the Thirties. Get through middle school and you’ll learn that.
loretta schaaf Says: September 12th, 2008 at 12:20 am
You give Bush way too much credit; he did not make all and/or do all these things without the help of the government…and the last I knew “the government was you and me, baby”.