Yes, Bush lied (WND'S Title)

WorldNetDaily ^ | Oct 6, 2003 | Paul Sperry

[UncleJeff]

WASHINGTON – A year ago, on Oct. 1, one of the most important documents in U.S. history was published and couriered over to the White House.

The 90-page, top-secret report, drafted by the National Intelligence Council at Langley, included an executive summary for President Bush known as the "key judgments." It summed up the findings of the U.S. intelligence community regarding the threat posed by Iraq, findings the president says formed the foundation for his decision to preemptively invade Iraq without provocation. The report "was good, sound intelligence," Bush has remarked.

Most of it deals with alleged weapons of mass destruction.

But page 4 of the report, called the National Intelligence Estimate, deals with terrorism, and draws conclusions that would come as a shock to most Americans, judging from recent polls on Iraq. The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and the other U.S. spy agencies unanimously agreed that Baghdad:

had not sponsored past terrorist attacks against America,

was not operating in concert with al-Qaida,

and was not a terrorist threat to America.

"We have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against U.S. territory," the report stated.

However, it added, "Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qaida could perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct."

Sufficiently desperate? If he "feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime," the report explained.

"In such circumstances," it added, "he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW [chemical and biological weapons] attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

In other words, only if Saddam were provoked by U.S. attack would he even consider taking the "extreme step" of reaching out to al-Qaida, an organization with which he had no natural or preexisting relationship. He wasn't about to strike the U.S. or share his alleged weapons with al-Qaida – unless the U.S. struck him first and threatened the collapse of his regime.

Now turn to the next page of the same NIE report, which is considered the gold standard of intelligence reports. Page 5 ranks the key judgments by confidence level – high, moderate or low.

According to the consensus of Bush's intelligence services, there was "low confidence" before the war in the views that "Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland" or "share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qaida."

Their message to the president was clear: Saddam wouldn't help al-Qaida unless we put his back against the wall, and even then it was a big maybe. If anything, the report was a flashing yellow light against attacking Iraq.

Bush saw the warning, yet completely ignored it and barreled ahead with the war plans he'd approved a month earlier (Aug. 29), telling a completely different version of the intelligence consensus to the American people. Less than a week after the NIE was published, he warned that "on any given day" – provoked by attack or not, sufficiently desperate or not – Saddam could team up with Osama and conduct a joint terrorist operation against America using weapons of mass destruction.

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists," Bush said Oct. 7 in his nationally televised Cincinnati speech. "Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving fingerprints." The terrorists he was referring to were "al-Qaida members."

By telling Americans that Saddam could "on any given day" slip unconventional weapons to al-Qaida if America didn't disarm him, the president misrepresented the conclusions of his own secret intelligence report, which warned that Saddam wouldn't even try to reach out to al-Qaida unless he were attacked and had nothing to lose – and might even find that hard to do since he had no history of conducting joint terrorist operations with al-Qaida, and certainly none against the U.S.

If that's not lying, I don't know what is.

What's worse, the inconvenient conclusions about Iraq and al-Qaida were withheld from the unclassified version of the secret NIE report that Bush authorized for public release the day before his Cincinnati speech, as part of the launch of the White House's campaign to sell the war. The 25-page white paper, posted on the CIA website, focused on alleged weapons of mass destruction, and conveniently left out the entire part about Saddam's reluctance to reach out to al-Qaida. Americans also didn't see the finding that Saddam had no hand in 9-11 or any other al-Qaida attack against American territory. That, too, was sanitized.

Over the following months, in speech after speech, Bush went right on lying with impunity about the Iraq-al-Qaida threat, all the while flouting the judgments of his own intelligence agencies.

Even after the war, Bush continued the lie. "We have removed an ally of al-Qaida," he said May 1 from the deck of the USS Lincoln. "No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime."

In the glaring absence of any hard proof of either those alleged weapons or al-Qaida links, the White House press corps has finally put down their stenographer's pads and started asking tough questions, forcing the president to at least level with the American people about Saddam's assumed role in 9-11.

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11" attacks, Bush confessed last month, finally repeating for the public what his own intelligence services had told him a year earlier.

The president's spokespeople say they're shocked, shocked, to learn that seven in 10 Americans tell pollsters they blame Saddam Hussein for the 9-11 attacks. Gee, they pondered, wherever did they get such an idea?

Oh, maybe from all the president's speeches and remarks suggesting Saddam was to blame for 9-11, starting with this one:

"Prior to Sept. 11, we thought two oceans would protect us," President Bush said about Iraq in an Oct. 14 speech in Michigan. "After Sept. 11, we've entered into a new era in a new war.

"This is a man that we know has had connections with al-Qaida," he continued, referring to Saddam. "This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army. And this is a man that we must deal with for the sake of peace."

Or this one:

"Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country," Bush said March 6 in a White House news conference. "The attacks of Sept. 11 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

Or this:

"Used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protect us from his type of terror," he said at the same press conference. "Sept. 11 should say to the American people that we're now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home."

In that press conference, Bush mentioned the Sept. 11 attacks nine times, Saddam 40 times, and Osama zero, effectively morphing Osama into Saddam, as I pointed out in a column just before the war.

During the war, Bush said he couldn't leave "enemies free to plot another Sept. 11 – this time, perhaps, with chemical, biological or nuclear terror."

In that April 5 radio address, he added: "We'll remove weapons of mass destruction from the hands of mass murderers."

Even when we found no weapons to remove, he continued to distort the truth about Iraq and 9-11.

"We will not wait for known enemies to strike us again," he said Aug. 26 in an American Legion speech, rationalizing his Iraq attack. "We will strike them before they hit more of our cities and kill more of our citizens."

The juxtaposition was no accident. Just as it was no accident that the White House timed the media rollout of its war campaign for the first 9-11 anniversary.

No wonder 71 percent of Americans told University of Maryland pollsters after the war that they believe the "Bush administration implied that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks." A more recent Washington Post poll, as well as other polls, came up with roughly the same number.

Sadly, it's the small minority of respondents who said they saw no connection at all who most accurately reflect the views of the U.S. intelligence community, proving again the power of unfiltered propaganda.

A smoking gun found now wouldn't even undo the lies. It wouldn't negate the fact that the president had no such evidence before the war when he claimed Saddam and Osama were thick as thieves, contradicting the intelligence community's threat assessment. He simply turned around and told the public a whopper.

Forget that Bush lied about the reasons for putting our sons and daughters in harm's way in Iraq; and forget that he sent 140,000 troops there with bull's-eyes on their backs, then dared their attackers to "bring it on."

It was the height of irresponsibility to have done so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real and proven threat to America. Bush diverted those troops and other resources – including intelligence assets, Arabic translators and hundreds of billions of tax dollars – from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border. And now they've regrouped and are as threatening as ever.

That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families' safety should be mad as hell about it – and that's coming from someone who voted for Bush.

[Cindy]

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[UncleJeff]

I figured that WHERE this was published made it newsworthy.

[backhoe]

I believe that where there is smoke, there is fire:

-IRAQ- some links to terror--

-All Terror, All the Time-- FR's links to NBC Warfare, Terror, and More...--

-Time to kick the tires & light the fires, folks- terrorism gathers across the World...--

[Cindy]

FYI Links of Interest...

FOX NEWS.com (AP): "KAY: CLUES EXIST ON ANTHRAX, MISSILES STILL IN IRAQ" (October 5, 2003) (Read More...)

WorldNetDaily.com: "BOTULINUM 'IS WMD' State Department Spokesman: Lethal bio-toxin 'kills people, It kills people in large quantities'" (October 4, 2003)

THE WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "IRAQ PAID NORTH KOREA TO DELIVER MISSILES" by Bill Gertz and Stephen Dinan (October 4, 2003)

AFTENPOSTEN.no (English) - News from Norway: "HACKERS THREATEN POWER NETWORK" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Norway's power grid is subject to aggressive hacking every day, carried out by computer terrorists apparently intent on cutting electricity to wide areas of the country. Agencies in charge of power production and the network have so far managed to thwart their efforts." (Updated September 30, 2003) (Read More...)

TOWNHALL.com: "THE BATTLEFIELDS IN IRAQ AND AT HOME" -Column by Diana West (COLUMN SNIPPET:"Speaking on Lebanese television from Norway (where he has political asylum -- thanks, Norway), Kreikar gave his take on the Islamic nature of the war on liberated Iraq. "The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion," he explained. "It is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the caliphate." By "caliphate," he was referring to the centuries'-long Islamic rule that dissolved at the end of World War I with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. "All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized effort to bring back the caliphate."") (August 19, 2003) (Read More...)

AFTENPOSTEN.no (English): "KREKAR EXPECTS TERRORIST ATTACKS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Mullah Krekar believes the group Ansar al-Islam, which he has led in the past, will retaliate violently to what they see as an unmotivated attack on them, TV 2 reports. The US civil administrator claimed that members of the north Iraq based group had returned to Iraq, planning terrorist actions.") (Read More...) (August 11, 2003)

AFTENPOSTEN.no (English) - Search Term: "KREKAR"

INSIGHT On The News online: "THE LINK BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL-QAEDA" by Scott L. Wheeler (September 29, 2003) (Read More...)

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: "ATTACK ON AMERICA!" (UPDATED DAILY.)

[piasa]

The article is almost pure drivel.

[Amelia]

The 90-page, top-secret report,

My questions:

How did the author become privy to a top secret report?

Why is the author publishing the contents of a top secret report?

Shouldn't someone be prosecuted for revealing the contents of a top secret report?

[NetValue]

This is a "blame America" viewpoint.

Saddam's actions for two decades threatened the stability of the middle east. His invasion of Iran and Kuwait, and his intention to go for Saudi Arabia took the middle east and the world to the brink of a far larger war.

The National Intelligence Estimate is not the highest of intelligence documents. It is a general intelligence assessment. There are far more sensitive and definitive intelligence documents available to decision makers. These we will never see or hear about. I trust the totality of intelligence the President and Congress has available.

It is unhelpful in a time after America was actually attacked to raise uncertainty about the legitimacy of our response. All I can say is looking at the big picture, if you want to solve the terrorism threat, you have to solve the middle east problem and to do that you need stability. Saddam was one major cause of instabilty. He was not the only one.

Iraq lies between Syria and Iran. Iraq is now strategic real estate. Those governments would do well to learn from what happened to Iraq. We are there to bring stability to the area so the bigger issue can be resolved politically rather than militarily (but that outcome is availabe too, if necessary.)

[Cindy]

re post no.8

Those are very good questions Amelia.

[Amelia]

Thanks.

The problem is, if the report is "Top Secret", we don't have access to it, so we have to take the author's word for what it says and doesn't say (even leaving off the question of whether we should be discussing it in the first place.)

That being the case, it's really impossible for the average person to verify whether or not, as the author purports, Bush lied.

However, we can assume that the writer has an agenda.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Excellent observations. Were we to look at the big picture, rather than parsing the reasons given for a particular action, we would see that terrorism has been adopted as the primary tactic of war by a mad Islamic militant group mired in the third century. Just as the Communists before them, their goal is world domination. In fact, I think they enjoy the support of the Communists even today.

Had this group been properly addressed in its early stages of aggression, as Reagan partially did, we wouldn't be where we are today. GHW Bush was too sensitive to the UN. Clinton was a selfish coward whose real allegiance probably lay more with them than us. The only effective way the problem can be addressed is the way W did it. Now he is being attacked from all sides by those too afraid to act and those who prefer us to lose this fight.

Hell, even the Communist are starting to see that this group of nuts is a threat to them as well. But not our homegrown lefties. They keep chewing around the edges and launching brash frontal attacks on Bush. They have yet to grasp the seriousness of the situation. They are too blinded by their political games and quest for power, never stopping to think that they will be forced to deal with these extremists themselves. Once that day comes, hopefully never, they will wish for a George Bush, a Dick Cheney, and a Don Rumsfield.

[stradivarius]

The author of that article is fixated on whether Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to the U.S. He doesn't understand that Saddam Hussein was certainly a long-term threat to the U.S., and he was in the perfect position to be removed. That's the meaning of the Bush Doctrine.

The weakness of his reasoning is the assumption that the U.S. needed to wait until a nuclear threat is upon us, rather than proactively defusing the threat when we know for certain it's just a matter of time before the threat materialized.

There were several valid and independently sufficient reasons to remove Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime from power (any one of which was sufficient by itself):

1. Saddam Hussein did not provide full disclosure of his WMD programs to the UN weapons inspectors, therefore he was probably hiding WMD, and since he'd used WMD before, that made him an unacceptable risk to the region and to the U.S., especially since he was proven to be developing illegal long-range missiles. Also, one gallon of Anthrax could wipe out an entire U.S. city, and it was too easy to transport, and someone was already terrorizing the U.S. with highly refined weapons-grade anthrax. Disarmament and a full accounting of Saddam's WMD programs and stocks was an obligation of the cease-fire Saddam signed with the U.S. in 1991, and he was in clear violation of the cease-fire agreement.

2. Saddam Hussein had a history of trying to develop nuclear weapons (e.g., French-built Osirak Reactor that Israel destroyed, and another nuclear reactor hidden in a mountain that was discovered during Operation Iraqi Freedom). Iraq has no legitimate peaceful need to have a nuclear reactor for energy, since they have immense supplies of oil, and the same logic holds for Iran. Once Saddam got nukes, either by developing them or buying them, he'd have dominance over the entire region and be undeterrable. He could blackmail the entire world for energy supplies. That was clearly his long-term plan.

3. The human rights atrocities in Iraq had to be stopped, as a moral imperative.

4. Removing Saddam Hussein was the lynch-pin to obtaining stability in the Middle East, which is in American interests. Without the threat of Saddam to Iran and Saudi Arabia, those nations could stop worrying about wars of aggression against them. When they're in a less defensive posture, they can be more open to peace. Something had to change in the Middle East, because it was a festering sore. Removing Saddam was removing the source of a major infection, and in the long-term we hope that Iraq will heal in a way that ill promote healing throughout the Middle East.

For each of those reasons, Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power BEFORE his uncooperative terrorist regime developed nuclear deterrents and became unremovable and unstoppable.

[mathluv]

Does this person work for World Net Daily?

[TomB]

Iraq lies between Syria and Iran. Iraq is now strategic real estate. Those governments would do well to learn from what happened to Iraq. We are there to bring stability to the area so the bigger issue can be resolved politically rather than militarily (but that outcome is availabe too, if necessary.)

Let's not forget also that Syria lies between Israel and Iraq (US). This week the Isrealis attacked into Syria for the first time in 30 years. Coincidence?

Things must be getting very warm in Bashar Assads house.

[wayoverontheright]

had not sponsored past terrorist attacks against America,

Saddam's intent to do us harm was made clear when he tried to assassinate Bush #1. He wasn't cornered then was he?

The CIA is so full of Clintonites it is working against Bush, why won't he fire Tenet?

[Corin Stormhands]

Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. He is author of "Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism" (WND Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson Publishers).

Well, at least he doesn't have an agenda...

[TomB]

There were several valid and independently sufficient reasons to remove Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime from power (any one of which was sufficient by itself):

5. He continually violated the terms of the cease-fire that ended the first Gulf War. That alone was causus belli.

[facedown]

bump

[alnick]

Yeah, WND has access to a top secret report. I believe that. </sarcasm>