Did Bush Lie?

[gilliam]

I think Powell said a number of times that when he went to the UN he double checked all the facts in the speech himself, and at the time they were as reliable as such intellegence reports get. He had the option of ommitting items.

Bottom line: the only one who consistantly lied was Saddam.

Also, if we find out that some people on the Democratic side deliberately changed the facts and undermined our soldiers (aka gave aid and comfort to the enemy), for political reasons, it will bode ill on the Democrats in the next election.

 

[MikeWM]

SamCA:

An example. We had a prisoner in custody who told us that Iraq was training Al Queida in bomb making and tactics. We used that intelligence to try to show a link between Iraq and Al Quieda, up to and including major speeches by Bush. Since then, leaked internal communications have shown that they knew this were pretty sure was lying through his teeth right from the getgo, and he was classified as unreliable – but they used it anyway to try to get people onboard with Iraq.

The question to me seems to amount to where the dishonesty took place. I’m quite capable of believing that it was much further down the chain than the President, and by the time the intel got to him he believed it was entirely accurate, but somebody was messing about.

There is also the hypothetical situation where you have 100 intelligence reports, and 1 of them says that Iraq has WMD. Now you can perfectly honestly say ‘we have intelligence that Iraq has WMD’ without lying, but it is somewhat deceiving to ignore the fact that the 99 others say the opposite.

I’m not suggesting that this is what happened, but often people are keener to give people the things they want to see over the things they don’t.

Mike

 

[2shelbys]

usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-08-powell-iraq_x.htm

I can’t actually find a source for the ‘two thirds’ bit, which leads me to suspect that I’m probably wrong about it. (Could have sworn I remembered a quote to that effect; if anyone actually remembers something like that, let me know; if not, I’m almost certainly incorrect.)

Nonetheless, Powell has publically recanted on the validity of the evidence he presented to the UN.

That is because he never said anything like that. He also did not recant on the validity of what he presented to the UN. He said that there were some in the CIA who felt that “some” of the sources might be unreliable. That is a VERY different statement than what you claim he said. He did not recant anything, he just lamented that the CIA did not tell him about dissenting views. He also certainly did not recant the validity of the video, photos, and recordings that CLEARLY demonstrated the fact that Iraq was making a massive effort to hide and transport to Syria something that they were not supposed to have. He also stated that he was still “with the President on the decision to go to war”.

 

[gilliam]

Related threads:

‘I think it’s a lie to say that the president lied’

Iraq, Intelligence & Shame

 

[SamCA]

2shelbys:

That is because he never said anything like that. He also did not recant on the validity of what he presented to the UN. He said that there were some in the CIA who felt that “some” of the sources might be unreliable. That is a VERY different statement than what you claim he said. He did not recant anything, he just lamented that the CIA did not tell him about dissenting views.

I think you’ll find that what he actually said is that the speech was a permanent blot on his record, and he regrets ever having made it.

Sounds an awful lot like recanting to me.

 

[SamCA]

MikeWM:

John McCain said that Powell said ‘two thirds’ on The Daily Show last week, if that helps.

Mike

Thanks, that’s probably where I got it. At least I know I didn’t make it up off the top of my head.

 

[2shelbys]

SamCA:

No, but it does say that…

But they were relied upon, despite the fact that they knew beforehand the sources were bad. Why would you go to the UN and give them information from sources you already know aren’t telling the truth, if you’re not trying to spice up your case a bit?.

You are misrepresenting the situation. Some people in the CIA thought that SOME of the sources might have been unreliable and you are extrapolating that out to everyone knowing that ALL of the intel was bad. That is not even close to being the truth.

An example. We had a prisoner in custody who told us that Iraq was training Al Queida in bomb making and tactics. We used that intelligence to try to show a link between Iraq and Al Quieda, up to and including major speeches by Bush. Since then, leaked internal communications have shown that they knew this were pretty sure was lying through his teeth right from the getgo, and he was classified as unreliable – but they used it anyway to try to get people onboard with Iraq.

Another ficticious story from the press.

There’s also the small matter that we now know for a fact that Bush was bald-faced lying back when he was going on about how invading Iraq was a last resort, and how we should let the weapons inspectors work. We know this because the British government has leaked nine different memos from the highest levels of their government that discuss in plain language meetings they’ve had with their American counterparts to discuss the fact that Bush was already determined to invade Iraq even back then. These even including their own lawyers’ assessments that such an invasion would be illegal, unless they can use the UN WMD resolutions to provide legal cover

Again we know no such thing. The efforts of weapons inspectors had been twarted by Iraq since the early 90’s and continuing on the same course would have produced nothing more. As many have said, the the definition of insanity is “continuing to do the same things and expecting a different result”. Nine memos? Cite a reliable source. The only one I know of was the infamous “Downing Street memo” which was exposed as a fraud the same week it surfaced.

 

[2shelbys]

SamCA:

I think you’ll find that what he actually said is that the speech was a permanent blot on his record, and he regrets ever having made it.

Sounds an awful lot like recanting to me.

That is because you are taking one sentence out of the whole and reading into it what you want. If you look at all of what he said you get a different picture.

 

[SamCA]

2shelbys:

That is because you are taking one sentence out of the whole and reading into it what you want. If you look at all of what he said you get a different picture.

I actually had a difficult time finding much of his speech online beyond the oft-quoted couple of lines; if you have a link to the full text, I’d appreciate it. (Sometimes Google can be annoyingly obtuse.)

 

[Thekla]

2shelbys:

This is just getting too old.

I’ll say it’s getting old. Do you really think that if there was all this WMD stuff found in Iraq that the administration wouldn’t be shouting it from the rooftops? David Kay said, “We were all wrong” and Stephen Hadley, the NSA, just repeated it over the weekend. Yet you are getting tired of restating the facts? I don’t think that that is cause of your fatigue.

 

[2shelbys]

Thekla:

I’ll say it’s getting old. Do you really think that if there was all this WMD stuff found in Iraq that the administration wouldn’t be shouting it from the rooftops? David Kay said, “We were all wrong” and Stephen Hadley, the NSA, just repeated it over the weekend. Yet you are getting tired of restating the facts? I don’t think that that is cause of your fatigue.

You are wrong, it is. The things that have been found (chemical artillery rounds, mobile biological weapons labs, chemical/biological decontamination trucks, yellow-cake uranium, etc, etc, etc) have been described, it just is not covered by the MSM (the Democrat propaganda ministry) that you apparantly get all of your information and opinions from. The videos, photos, and recordings that prove that Iraq had, was trying to conceal, and eventually transported to Syria huge amounts of something they knew they were not supposed to have have also been publicized. The fact that you and your sources ignore all of this does not make it go away.

 

[2shelbys]

SamCA:

I actually had a difficult time finding much of his speech online beyond the oft-quoted couple of lines; if you have a link to the full text, I’d appreciate it. (Sometimes Google can be annoyingly obtuse.)

There was a link to a good portion of it earlier in this thread but the link is no longer good. I will try to find the whole statement for you.

 

[Thekla]

2shelbys:

You are wrong, it is. The things that have been found (chemical artillery rounds, mobile biological weapons labs, chemical/biological decontamination trucks, yellow-cake uranium, etc, etc, etc) have been described, it just is not covered by the MSM (the Democrat propaganda ministry) that you apparantly get all of your information and opinions from. The videos, photos, and recordings that prove that Iraq had, was trying to conceal, and eventually transported to Syria huge amounts of something they knew they were not supposed to have have also been publicized. The fact that you and your sources ignore all of this does not make it go away.

So what is your response to the administrations’ silence on all these WMD’s? Now they didn’t matter to me much in the first place since I believed they were hyping the case, but how do you explain their silence?

 

[2shelbys]

Thekla:

So what is your response to the administrations’ silence on all these WMD’s? Now they didn’t matter to me much in the first place since I believed they were hyping the case, but how do you explain their silence?

You have not noticed that until this week Bush had not wasted any time responding to any of the nonsense that has been said about him? He does not care about polls or political B.S. He only cares about doing the job. Has he made mistakes? Yes. Have I agreed with everything he has done? Heck no. But harping on this issue during the war is reckless and endangers the lives of our troops. Even if there was some truth to it which so far is unproven, you do not address it until hostilities are over and the troops are out of harms way.

 

[mlchance]

Thekla:

Did Bush lie? I think that the majority of people now believe that it’s likely if not definite that he did.

Interesting way to not answer the question.

IOW, there is absolutely no evidence President Bush lied. Every single time this issue is investigated and results are released, the results are the same: No, President Bush didn’t lie.

But since Thekla thinks the majority of people believe he did…

http://home.houston.rr.com/mchance3/rolleyes.gif

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Thekla]

mlchance:

Interesting way to not answer the question.

IOW, there is absolutely no evidence President Bush lied. Every single time this issue is investigated and results are released, the results are the same: No, President Bush didn’t lie.

But since Thekla thinks the majority of people believe he did…

http://home.houston.rr.com/mchance3/rolleyes.gif

– Mark L. Chance.

You are right that I didn’t answer the question. I’ll do it now with a resounding “yes.” But it wasn’t my president alone; it was the entire administration that deliberately left the American people with a false impression.

I think that the reason I answered the question the way that I did has to do with the fact that that has been my long-standing position. Only now am I joined in my belief by a growing percent, some 57%, of fellow Americans.

It’s not that I think that a majority of Americans believe the administration deliberately misled the nation for war; Americans are telling pollsters that that is what they believe.

 

[gnjsdad]

2shelbys:

You are wrong, it is. The things that have been found (chemical artillery rounds, mobile biological weapons labs, chemical/biological decontamination trucks, yellow-cake uranium, etc, etc, etc) have been described, it just is not covered by the MSM (the Democrat propaganda ministry) that you apparantly get all of your information and opinions from. The videos, photos, and recordings that prove that Iraq had, was trying to conceal, and eventually transported to Syria huge amounts of something they knew they were not supposed to have have also been publicized. The fact that you and your sources ignore all of this does not make it go away.

LOL!

I wonder why the President or Vice President made no mention of all this. Maybe the MSM is hiding it from them, too.

 

[Thekla]

2shelbys:

He does not care about polls or political B.S. He only cares about doing the job.

Yikes! I guess that there a few people who actually believe that but thankfully the number continues to shrink. There are others who cling to this notion and always will. Hello? These are politicians. Of course they care about polls and the political stuff; it’s what they do.

As for the president’s response, it has not included the discovery of WMD’s that you assert. As I said before, if it were true, and perhaps even if it were not, they’d be shouting it from the rooftops. All I’ve heard is more of the same rhetoric.

 

[MikeWM]

Thekla:

As for the president’s response, it has not included the discovery of WMD’s that you assert. As I said before, if it were true, and perhaps even if it were not, they’d be shouting it from the rooftops. All I’ve heard is more of the same rhetoric.

Indeed. And Tony Blair certainly would. We don’t treat our politicians with quite the same respect the Americans do; in the runup to the election in May, Tony Blair got a lot of abuse over this issue, some of it quite extreme. There’s no way anyone would put up with that if he could have turned around and said ‘ah, but there were WMD, I wasn’t lying.’

Mike

 

[Petite]

Thekla:

Yikes! I guess that there a few people who actually believe that but thankfully the number continues to shrink. There are others who cling to this notion and always will. Hello? These are politicians. Of course they care about polls and the political stuff; it’s what they do.

As for the president’s response, it has not included the discovery of WMD’s that you assert. As I said before, if it were true, and perhaps even if it were not, they’d be shouting it from the rooftops. All I’ve heard is more of the same rhetoric.

Interesting discussion–preditcable comments depending on where you stand with President Bush. All of this reminds me of a quote from* Return of the Jedi: *

**

Obi-Wan: So what I told you was TRUE… from a certain point of view.
Luke: A certain point of view?
Obi-Wan: Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view

**

I would like to think that the President did NOT lie, however, I tend to think that he convinced himself that what he was telling us was true, from “a certain point of view”. History will ultimately answer this question–of course WHEN we will get the answers remains to be seen!

I wish the poltiical environment in the United States was such that IF a politician were to admit that s/he has changed opinions on a matter, that s/he could state it such and not be accused of being a waffler, a wimp, or a flip flopper. We have made the environment in this country such that it’s political suicide for a politician to say that s/he erred and ir now changing his/her point of view.