
February 1st / 3rd, 2008
"White House Guilty of Lethal Lies"
There are all types of lies, and as many reasons for telling them as there
are people spewing them. There are so-called “white lies”, such as the one
you tell a friend when you don’t want to hurt his or her feelings about the
ugly new car or dress they just bought. Then there are the kinds of lies we
tell to cover our butt. These canards are usually communicated to a parent,
spouse, or employer when trying to escape their wrath by deflecting blame
elsewhere.
For the most part, though, lies are passive and rarely lethal. The
exception to that rule is George Bush, who tells the kinds of lies that get people
killed.
Last week, two independent, non-profit groups released a report that
documented 935 false statements made by Bush and his inner circle regarding Iraq.
The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independent Journalism
studied how Bush, Cheney and a few others lied about the risk posed by Iraq in the
two years following 9/11. The study concluded that the statements “were
part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion,
and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses”.
Lies generated from the White House came in many forms via speeches,
briefings, and interviews. 532 of the fibs were about Iraq having Weapons of Mass
Destruction, or that Al Qaida was linked to Saddam’s regime. Of those, 244
came from Colin Powell (at the request of his boss), and 231 came from Bush
directly.
White House spokespersons criticized the non-partisan study, saying that the
President had acted on bad intelligence (there’s a joke in there somewhere,
but this is a serious subject, so I won’t stoop to such base humor). There
are, however, two flaws with that defense. First, the sole source of Bush’s
pre-invasion intelligence was a copy of a letter found by Italian spies that was
supposedly written from the Niger government to Saddam, confirming the sale
of uranium to Baghdad. Italian intelligence turned the letter over to our
CIA, and the Bush invasion of Iraq ensued.
But last April, Washington Post editor Peter Eisner told ABC News that a
simple Google search by the CIA would have shown that the letter was bogus and
riddled with false statements.
Clearly, Bush’s staff had the ability to run a fact check on one
correspondence. Even a local newspaper reporter knows to corroborate his source
before going to press. But the President of the United States failed to verify the
authenticity of a letter before taking us into war.
Second, even absent a fact check, Bush knew that the information was false
shortly after he invaded Iraq. In September of 2003 he broke the news of the
gaffe, and could have apologized, and then brought the troops home
immediately. We had sustained very few casualties at that point, and an organized
withdrawal would have been the appropriate course of action. Instead, we’ve
remained in Iraq for over four years since we learned the truth, and, during that
time, over 4,000 soldiers and 700,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and
children have lost their lives.
But it gets worse. Remember that the new study only documents lies told by
the White House from 2001 to 2003. Did Bush wise up after that? Did he mend
his ways? No. For example, shortly after the U.S. occupation began, George W
stated that he would pull our troops out any time the Iraqi government asked him to.
Guess what? In June of 2005, 82 prominent members of the Iraqi Parliament
wrote a letter calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. They
represented a diverse cross-section of Sunni Arabs, Shiites, Kurds, and Christians,
and their missive (of which Bush was aware) was delivered to their
President.
Soon after, the United Iraqi Alliance (the largest voting block in
Parliament) reported that their request for U.S. troop withdrawal had been ignored.
And what about the December 2005 letter to Congress from Bush’s Department
of Justice, saying that a domestic spying program had been needed ever since the
Twin Towers attack? The fact is that the White House had begun collecting
data from AT&T and other sources on day 11 of the Bush administration back
in January, 2001, seven months BEFORE 9/11.
The other day, someone asked me why we should be concerned with past lies.
After all, aren’t we just beating a dead horse with this issue? The truth is
that we should be greatly concerned because Bush’s past lies are continuing
to cost us lives and dollars, and because he continues to lie in order to
advance his various agendas.
As was mentioned earlier, the real cost of the war has been loss of human
life. But we cannot discount the tragic consequences of financial expenditures
in Iraq.
According to the National Priorities Project, we have spent over 488 billion
dollars on Bush’s war of lies. That’s nearly half a trillion dollars for
nothing!
NPP even breaks down the cost by state in terms of human services that we
could have funded with the war monies.
For example, nearly six million children could have had health care. Or, we
could have added 324,782 police, hired 262,746 new elementary school
teachers, or built over a thousand new schools. Or, if Bush was so concerned with
terrorism, we could have used the money to hire 179,935 port inspectors. But
we didn’t, because Bush had that money tied up in a war that should have
never been waged in the first place. And now, he’s rattling sabres about
invading Iran and Pakistan.
Years ago, the House of Representatives brought impeachment proceedings
against Bill Clinton for having oral sex in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinski.
Now we have a President who lies and kills people, yet has never been
personally investigated a single time.
Given the findings of this new study, Bush should be impeached before
another day goes by, before another soldier dies, or before another dollar is spent
in Iraq. Any Congressman who fails to bring forth those articles of
Impeachment will have blood on his hands. And that’s far worse than a stain on a
dress.
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