Here's an Associated Press summary of the study:
It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."
Bush himself led with 259 "false statements." Obviously, they're being polite by calling it "false statements." They mean he lied. And, of course, this was no small matter. When Bush lied, people died. Over 150,000 Iraqis and nearly 4,000 Americans, to be specific.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 8)
1. I fully believe this claim. The Bush administration has and continues to propagate the war to further their personal goals, to create a singular war organization. You should see Zeitgeist. It will allow you to think more clearly. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
LMC at 12:57AM on Jan 23rd 2008
2. My God,
I just don't, or I just can't find anything more to say about this clown in a suit.
I guess I'm fatigued.
Peace!!!!!
Judith at 1:04AM on Jan 23rd 2008
3. We did not need two independent analysis regarding the propogandizing the WMD excuse.And what did they achieve through this belated redundancy? These lies should have been cited during the prelude to the war.A better use of their time would have been to analyze why American's in general were hoodwinked (gullible) or why they remained acquiescent to the it-smells-like-a-rat disinformation. Tell us something we DON'T know.
boredwell at 1:06AM on Jan 23rd 2008
4. According to Senior counter-terrorist official in Briton they knew that Bush had lied and that's the reason why Blair was force to step down.
"In recent years, the nothing of al Qaeda as a decentralised organisation-a group ththat inspires attacks rather then organishing and planning them itself--has gained common currency." (BBC security correspondent 10/19/06
Officials also believe that the close connections between communities in the UK and Pakistan mean that even though al Qaeda would also like to attack the United States and other countries, the UK is likely to be the primary target because of the volume of travel and contact between the tow countries. BBC 'THE EVOLVING THREAT OF AL QAEDEA'
From what I have been reading on the BBC is that The White House and Tony Blair didn't think al Qaeda was a real threat to the world. Once al Qaeda and the Taliban was ran out of Afghanistan they would disband. AS you know by now that is not what has happen. Pakistan is a threat for many reason, and yet Bush does nothing to address this problem.
According to the Brit intel there is two traning camps in Pakistan and they are training about 50,000 new Terrorist, and they are coming from all over.
This is a mess that Bush has gotten us into, and unless Bush stops the occupation in Iraq and quits beating the drums to invade Iran this will begain WWIII. As you can tell Russia said they will not put up with the crap.
President Bush needs to get over his Man thing and do the right thing, by coming clean with the AMERICAN PEOPLE on Why he lied to us.
Dancerpl2 at 2:20AM on Jan 23rd 2008
5. Maybe we should get the ball rolling by impeacing Nancy Pelosi for obstruction of justice. Justice requires impeachment hearings. Nancy Pelosi gave Bush and Cheney license to commit their crimes without fear of impeachment.
Captain Negative at 3:50AM on Jan 23rd 2008
6. All it takes is one truth from "The Bush Fly" to knock him and his administration down. Why do you think "Impeachment" was taken off the table? The truth hurts! Isn't it great to know that you are the butt of jokes on both sides of the isle? Talk about a bipartisan spirit working for the status quo?
Cecil Jones at 4:14AM on Jan 23rd 2008
7. WOW and they wanted to impeach Clinton for lying about getting a BLOW JOB that got NO ONE killed! Go figure!
DJ Foothill at 4:19AM on Jan 23rd 2008
8. CENK
Of course you did not check the IMPARTIAL groups that did the study.
GEROGE SOROS FUNDED- Center for Public Integrity
GEORGE SOROS FUNDED-including money from STRIESLAND FOUNDATION- Fund for Independence in Journalism
Two LIBERAL FASCIST organizations funded by people who hate the US Government
IMPEACH CHENEY-and bring these people into Congress to testify, under oath, along with their donors. The IMPEACH CHENEY resolution is in Committee, dumped there by Democrat House Leadership after Liberal Democrats and Republicans voted against tabling the Resolution and keeping it on the House Floor for debate and a vote. The Democrats dumped the IMPEACH CHENEY Resolution into committee to die and not be debated.
IMPEACH CHENEY= and let the facts come out under oath.
CENK AND HIS SLANTED LIBERAL FASCIST SOURCES ARE AT IT AGAIN. AIR AMERICA RATING ARE SO LOW THEY MAY NOT EVEN BE SHOWN.
ROBERT OKANE at 4:37AM on Jan 23rd 2008
9. Please take a course in basic logic. Although every lie must contain a statement that is false, not every false statement is a lie.
A lie is a false statement that, at the time it was made, was known to be false by its maker. Your article and your sources offer no proof that will support calling those statements lies.
longwalker at 7:01AM on Jan 23rd 2008
10.
Bush and Cheney not only lied, they planned their lies far in advance; multiple insider sources have said that invading Iraq was on the liars' agenda from day one of their illegitimate takeover of the White House. They only needed a convenient excuse to invade, which of course was 9/11.
Growing evidence suggests that 9/11 was actually planned and implemented by Bush and Cheney, probably with the help of Mossad and a number of other flying monkeys including Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden had been funded by the criminals Reagan and Bush Senior in the 1980's to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, the bin Laden family and the Bush family have long had a cozy business relationship via the Carlyle Group, and a number of Saudis including bin Laden family members were allowed to flee the country right after 9/11 when all other commercial air traffic was grounded. No explanation for allowing the escape of material witnesses which might have helped locate Osama bin Laden has been forthcoming from the Bush administration. If that was the only strange occurence they might be given the benefit of the doubt but the list is long and still being added to as new information emerges. For example there are the lying fabrications uttered by Bush Junior about what he thought when he saw the first plane strike the WTC while he was sitting outside the Florida classroom waiting to go in. Trouble is, (almost) nobody anticipated that first strike so there were no live video feeds of the WTC being transmitted over national television for Bush to see, so he can only be lying or possibly hallucinating (but his history of lying lends credence to the first possibility). Bush even repeated his lie a second time and both lies are documented on the White House website (see fuller details and links at http://censored.strategicbrains.com/BushAnd911.cfm ). There can be no mistaking that what Bush says is impossible, yet he 'recalls' thinking that first pilot must have been a terrible pilot? He can only be confabulating a plausible story for the sake of the people he's still successfully duping, which at last count in the polls thankfully is a minority of people because the majority of Americans believe that the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 is a falsehood. When liars lie they have a reason to, and we know with 100% certainty that Bush is lying about 9/11, so he must have a reason to lie, n'est-ce pas? Well of course, he has to if he is to maintain a coverup of the biggest American mass murder spree in history.
Numerous organizations of professional architects, engineers, physicists and other scientists, pilots, and firemen are springing up to also voice their professional opinions that 9/11 was an inside job and that the official conspiracy theory is a lie (see http://www.ae911truth.org/ , http://stj911.org/ , http://www.journalof911studies.com/ , and http://pilotsfor911truth.org/ for starters if this is a new revelation to you) but you will barely hear the mainstream media even mention the topic. There is strong evidence that Bush and Cheney engineered the 9/11 attacks, and the media won't investigate and write about it? They have to be largely complicit in the coverup too by shirking their professional responsibilities that way. Indeed the CIA's Project Mockingbird (see http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html ) is all about media manipulation, so we should not expect to see much media coverage about how 9/11 was an inside job. Fortunately the Web enables information to be dispersed without CIA manipulation so we know a lot of interesting facts which contradict the official conspiracy theory. My favorite is the large quantities of molten iron/steel found in the basements of the three WTCs which collapsed (including WTC 7 which wasn't even hit by an airplane and yet fell perfectly symmetrically at nearly freefall speed after asymmetrical damage, looking exactly like a controlled demolition). That molten iron/steel is a smoking gun because it is impossible to have formed at the relatively low temperatures produced by jet fuel and office furnishing burning in air, and molten iron/steel has never been observed in any building fires before 9/11. Steel may weaken and deform in building fires, but not melt. So how did molten steel/iron form three times in a row on 9/11? One explanation is that thermite was used to weaken the buildings before bringing them down with explosives planted on the central columns, that could explain the molten metal but the official conspiracy theory cannot (see http://moltenmetalsmokinggun.blogspot.com/ for details).
So where are the Young Turks on this important issue? They are certainly smart enough to research the facts for themselves and write about the topic. What is holding them back? Is the whole damn mass media nothing but lying shills for the Bush propaganda machine?
DancesWithFascists at 7:15AM on Jan 23rd 2008
11. Ok so now we know the # of lies, before the war, they must still be counting the newer ones, mission accomplished, the economy is sound.
Dennis at 7:35AM on Jan 23rd 2008
12. Oil futures held steady Wednesday in Asia after dropping overnight despite the U.S. Federal Reserve's surprise cut in its key interest rates.
While the Fed's cut helped crude futures recover from much steeper losses Tuesday, many investors doubt the move will stave off a serious slowdown that would dampen demand.
Bush does not care about the economy or americans. My guess is this is the saudis plan.
Dennis at 7:36AM on Jan 23rd 2008
13. And FDR promised in a campaign speech a week before the 1940 general election that he wouldn't send troops to Europe. Meanwhile, he was negotiating with Churchill on how to get U.S. troops into the war.
Even Eleanor said that making a promise that he didn't intend to keep could have severe consequences.
You also have to remember that Sadaam was trying to dupe the Iranians into believing that he had WMDs. So, when a country is trying to tell investigators that it doesn't have something that it's been trying to convince a neighboring enemy that it does, common sense says that the claims of obeying U.N. mandates may be a sham.
Besides, we got Libya to turn over their WMDs. They are sitting at the U.S. facility in Oak Ridge, TN. Don't we feel better that Khadafi doesn't have WMDs to unleash on his enemies? I do.
Kent at 7:54AM on Jan 23rd 2008
14. What is world really needs is JESUS - God's Love Personified.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com/#the_message_that_we_were_born_to_hear
Eddie Pope at 8:28AM on Jan 23rd 2008
15. amen
April at 8:30AM on Jan 23rd 2008