Two leftist organizations have released a study that claims that the Bush administration lied about Iraq. Somehow I think we've heard that one before. Well, the two groups--the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism--managed to secure major media attention by making the claim that the Bush administration released 935 false statements. Clearly no one was in the mood to read all 935, so the leftist groups boiled them down to 532. We hear that on 532 occasions the Bush administration claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. So the claim is not that Bush told 532 lies, but that he told the same lie 532 times.
But consider this: If Bush actually knew that Iraq didn't possess weapons of mass destruction, and yet repeatedly told the American people that Iraq had them, didn't Bush expect that following the Iraq invasion his deception would be found out? When I raise this point with liberals on campus, they typically say, "Well, we're not saying that Bush knew for sure that there were no such weapons. We are saying that his administration stacked the data." But this is another way of saying that Bush actually believed that there were those weapons, and he mobilized whatever evidence he could muster to make his case. This may reflect prejudice against Saddam Hussein's motives or even imprudent decision making but it is hardly proof of lying.
Consider a similar decision made by President Roosevelt. In the period leading up to World War II, a group of refugee German scientists warned Albert Einstein that the Germans were building an atomic bomb. The project was headed by that country's greatest scientist, Werner Heisenberg. Acutely aware of the dangers of Hitler getting such a weapon, Einstein took this information in the fall of 1939 to President Roosevelt, who commissioned the Manhattan Project. America built the bomb, and later dropped two of them on Japan.
Many years later, Americans discovered that the Germans were nowhere close to building an atomic bomb. Their project was on the wrong track, and it seems to have stalled in its infancy. Some historians believe Heisenberg was trying to thwart the project from the inside. Be that as it may, in retrospect we now know that the intelligence that led to the Manhattan Project was wrong. But no one goes around saying, "Einstein lied" or "FDR lied." They didn't lie. They used the information they had to make a tough decision in a very dangerous situation.
The same is true of Bush. As a statesman, he had to act in the moving current of events. He didn't have the luxury of hindsight. To those leftist pundits who say, "Knowing what we know now, Mr Bush, why did you do what you did then?" Bush's answer is, "Obviously I didn't know what we know now." Acting against the somber backdrop of 9/11, Bush made a hard call based on an assessment of the intelligence provided to him. He may have acted in haste, and he may have acted in error, but he did not act in bad faith. Therefore the claim that Bush lied is itself a lie.
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Actually Bush Didn't Lie
Posted Jan 23rd 2008 1:20PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Breaking News, Iraq, George Bush, Controversy
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Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 32)
91. Alan Lee; so if someone lies, and then I say that they lie, I am being vain and foolish?
Ryan Anderson at 6:11PM on Jan 23rd 2008
92. For mike m at 2:55PM on Jan 23rd 2008
Right on! The “Bush lied “ argument has been destroyed. Funny how when Democratic Presidents get us into wars, it’s okay (WWI-Woodrow Wilson,WWII-Franklin Roosevelt,Korea-Harry Truman,Vietnam-Kennedy/Johnson,Bosnia-Clinton,Somalia-Clinton). Trouble is, Republicans have to go clean up the mess and take the blame. When a Republican President starts a war (Desert Storm-G.H.W. Bush, Iraqi Freedom-George W. Bush) he usually gets results more quickly with less US casualties. Go to this website for the Dept. of Defense’s Casualty reports for US involved wars since the Revolution at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
Marlinj Brown at 6:21PM on Jan 23rd 2008
93. As far as W lying goes, all presidents lie; the question is what do they do when they discover their error? W has done nothing.
Whether or not W knowingly lied, or based his actions on the lies of others makes little difference except to apologist extremists on either side... such as an right-wing moron like Tim Logeman, who seems to have only posted this one time at this site. Strange; perhaps DD in disguise? I wouldn't put it past him. Or some other anonymous jerk; there certainly seem to be a fair number of DD supporters who only post once here... nah, I guess it's just a coincidence.
grigori at 6:19PM on Jan 23rd 2008
94. Steve Seivers wrote: "Honestly DD, do you not feel shame when you say these things?"
Nah, DD will never feel shame for anything; he's got God on his side, don't you know. The Right is always right; just ask them.
grigori at 6:21PM on Jan 23rd 2008
95. Saddam Hussein's administration had several people holding positions such as, 'Director, Biological Warfare', 'Director, Chemical Warfare', and had used gas against Iran in the eight year war and against militant Kurds in Iraq. These incidents are historically accurate. During the first Gulf War, Iraq fired SCUD missles with explosive war heads at Saudi Arabia, Israel and American positions. The only reason they did not fire SCUDS with Chemical/Gas Warheads is due to their inability to manufacture/procure a means of attaching them to the missle! With a history of using chemical weapons it is easy to assume that the enemy has a capability of doing so! One must realize that militant Islamic persons will attack ANYONE that appears to digress from their radical religious beliefs. This is the primary reason that support from Arabic Governments is in their own best interest of survival than any Human Rights or Equality interest. The Iranian Government voices the radical Islamic point of view because they wish to remain in power. A deviation from that point of view would bring about a coup and they would be against a wall facing a firing squad. There is a high probability that if Sadam had any operational WMD's he would have used them, exactly as he has done in the past.
William Bergiadis at 11:13PM on Jan 23rd 2008
96. grigori at 6:03PM on Jan 23rd 2008
You might instead want to do it to yourself.
I am a resident of Louisiana and the facts are undeniable. Kathleen Blanco refused Bush’s offer of federal aid 2 days before Katrina hit N.O. The idiot Mayor Ray Nagin refused to evacute the city having the means and the civil defense plan in place to do so. Staistics show that N.O. is a welfare city. In other places where Katrina destroyed property, the people there didn’t wait for the government to show up, they started picking up the pieces and rebuilding right away. Why does N.O. want 250 billion dollars to rebuild? That comes out to about 2.5 million dollars for the average family of four. The average property value in the 9th ward at that time was less than $60,000, so who is bullsh*ting who here? As a tax-paying Louisianian, I am tired of footing the bill for N.O. , most of the State resources are spent on N.O. and nothing good is ever accomplished. The proof of how I and others not living in N.O. is that we voted out a lot of Democrats recently, we now have a Rep[ublican Governor and a majority in the Sate legislature. Take my advice here and go get a job to pay for your own lifestyle, because the welfare tit in Louisiana is about to dry up.
Marlinj Brown at 6:41PM on Jan 23rd 2008
97. Another hot steaming cup of stupid.
No wonder our academic standards keep falling. D'Idiot's credentials are lofty enough that when he perpetuates Bush as having an IQ higher than his poll numbers, it makes me quiver for the fates of humanity.
This war has been one long lie, with rationals re-aligned over and over. Remember "Iraq oil will pay for the war?" How about "They'll greet us with flowers as we take the city?" Or the biggest ongoing lie of all: "Osama Bin Laden, dead or alive?"
You still buy into that? Kool-aid drinkers, one and all.
Tim at 6:42PM on Jan 23rd 2008
98. In the Bush administration "the negation of truth is so systematic. Dishonest accounting, willful scientific illiteracy, bowdlerized federal fact sheets, payola paid to putative journalists, 'news' networks run by right-wing apparatchiks, think tanks devoted to propaganda rather than thought, the purging of intelligence gatherers and experts throughout the bureaucracy whose findings might refute the party line -- this is the machinery of mendacity...The point here is not the hypocrisy involved, though that is egregious. The point is the downgrading of truth and honesty from principles with universal meaning to partisan weapons to be sheathed or drawn as necessary. No wonder the Bush administration feels no compunction to honor the truth or seek it; it conceives truth as a tactic, valuable only insofar as it is useful against one's enemies." Russ Rymer
But the Iraq thingy... that was 'different'. LOL
not-pboyfloyd at 6:47PM on Jan 23rd 2008
99. Tim at 6:42PM on Jan 23rd 2008
George Bush scored 1206 on his SATs abd graduated from Yale and then from Harvard with a GPA of 3.6, he was a successful business owner, Governor of Texas twice, and Predident of the USA twice. When your own accomplishments can meet or exceed his, then you might be qualified to judge his accomplishments. In the meantime, you should Shut-the-F**k-up.
Marlinj Brown at 6:53PM on Jan 23rd 2008
100. All you need to know can be found by looking at writings concerning The Project for a New American Century, a neo-con think tank. Founders, members, supports include: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, Bolton, Armitage, Abrams, Libby, Cheney...all Bush cronies and administration members. The neo-con doctrine central to the PNAC was developed in the early 1990's and calls for pre-emptive strikes against Middle Eastern nations (Iraq, Iran) in order to establish a US presence from which US power could be projected in the region. This group of individuals was hell-bent, even pre-George W. Bush, to get Saddam out at any cost in order to establish a US bulwark in the area. The pre-9-11 doctrine even stated that a “Pearl Harbor-like” event was needed to spur the people of the US to move in this direction. When 9-11 happened, it was “too good” to pass-up and was used cynically by the Bushies to drum up support for the Iraq invasion. They also dragged out every other reason including the WMD’s. Colin Powell’s presentation at the UN was a low point in US foreign policy. There were no mobile, truck mounted bio-weapon factories, etc. and everyone knew it.
DD ignores the fact that everything that happened after 9-11 was already part of an existing doctrine. This was not the case in WWII, concerning US policy towards Germany. His analogy to a German atomic program is ridiculous. Back then, we had nowhere near the sophistication in spying technology (satellites, communications monitoring, etc) that we have now. Then, in the 1930’s/40’s we had a genuine inability to determine Germany’s technical progress.
Read the materials on PNAC, read the Downing Street memo. Wake-up you ignoramus.
John Galt
John Galt at 6:52PM on Jan 23rd 2008
101. Funny how when Democratic Presidents get us into wars, it’s okay (WWI-Woodrow Wilson,WWII-Franklin Roosevelt,Korea-Harry Truman,Vietnam-Kennedy/Johnson,Bosnia-Clinton,Somalia-Clinton).
xxx
it's ok because they don't start them but they do win them.
republicans cut and run - ike, korea, nixon,vietnam, Reagan,lebanon bush1 iraq, bush2, afghanistan.
Your party is interested in profit and nothing else. Your party has yet to clean up a mess post war.
Bush 1 cut and ran and left hussein behind according to bush 2. Clinton contained aggression and under his watch WMD's were removed, the nulclear program halted. Not even unconventional weapons were manufactured.
Bush 2 has done nothing more than create the quagmire his father's administration including Cheney on record knew would occur.
The was was for profit. The lies were to dupe the public and it worked for too long. For some here, representative of about 20% of the population, he's still got them fooled.
Once more. democrats win wars. If republicans had fought hitler we'd be speaking german. Republicans cut and run. You are the party of cowardice, communist sympathy (trade deficit, outsourcing, poison food just like the robber baron era) and treason. Your party was once great, but no more and not for a long time. The last honest man you had as president was Dwight Eisenhower.
Clif Kuplen at 6:55PM on Jan 23rd 2008
102. I find the constant hatred of the Bush bashers to be bizarre--almost cult-like-- in its refusal to acknowledge this administration's HUGE cover from everyone else (UN, Clintons) who believed Saddam had WMDs, leading up to the war in Iraq, but its amazing lack of further terrorist attacks after 9/11. One of the most repellent traits of hardcore Bush haters is their ability to spew toxic language over every move his administration makes. It very much reminds me of the whole cult of Jim Jones' Kool Aid Drinkers, which operated on denying facts, then when the facts can no longer be denied, making up a fantastic story to make the facts fit the situation at hand.
Rophia Sox at 7:08PM on Jan 23rd 2008
103. When your own accomplishments can meet or exceed his, then you might be qualified to judge his accomplishments. In the meantime, you should Shut-the-F**k-up.
Marlinj Brown at 6:53PM on Jan 23rd 2008
xx
How about if somebody could just snort as much cocaine or soak up as much liquor as he could or cover his awol ass during nam like he could or duck dui convictions? What if somebody's daddy's richer?
Of course what you said could be said against you when it comes to whoever is the democratic nomination for president, but you probably think it's cute when you don't shut the fuck up, though, right?
Clif Kuplen at 7:08PM on Jan 23rd 2008
104. Clif Kuplen at 6:55PM on Jan 23rd 2008
Unfortunately for you, the Democrats have never had an honest president. Bush 1 did not cut and run, our liberal allies and the UN made him stop. Clinton didn't contain anything, during his administration, Americans were attacked repeated without any measureable response from Clinton, wereas we have not been attacked but once during Bush's administration. Quagmire is a favorite word liberals use when they think we are winning the war despite thier best efforts to sabotage our military by giving aid and comfort to the enemy, a treasonous act according to US law. The war was not for profit but for bringing freedom to an oppressed people, hence the name "Iraqi Freedom" was applied. The oil and profit you say we were in it for belongs to the people of Iraq, not us. The democrats took years to win wars, yet they holler at Bush for not finishing overnight. The US spent many years in Japan and Germany until they were able to stand on thier own, but the democrats want us out before we are funidhed. Oh, what hypocrisy! By the way, communist sympathy is the forte of the democrats and liberals. You have in your writing resorted to the usual liberal tactic: If you can't win, accuse the other guy of your own failings.
Marlinj Brown at 7:11PM on Jan 23rd 2008
105. By the way, FEMA worked under bill clinton's appointee, James Lee Witt. For katrina you didn't get Witt, you got brownie so now you need scapegoats. Go ahead and fool yourself. I guess the rest of us can watch and sigh and roll our eyes.
Clif Kuplen at 7:12PM on Jan 23rd 2008