Posted on 03/08/2016 12:32:52 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As Peter Allen once sang, Everything old is new again — including the claim that George W. Bush lied about Iraq to get us into a war. Last month, Donald Trump revived the allegations as an attack on Jeb Bush, whose candidacy was already fading out of contention. Judith Miller, who went to jail to prevent disclosing her sources, addresses this claim in a new Prager University video released earlier today, arguing that most of what people think they know about the march to war in Iraq is simply wrong … much like the intelligence analyses that took us to war 13 years ago this month:
There was no shortage of mistakes about Iraq, and some of the media’s prewar WMD stories were wrong, including some of mine. But so is the enduring, pernicious accusation that the Bush administration fabricated WMD intelligence to take the country to war. Before the 2003 invasion, President Bush and other senior officials cited the intelligence community’s incorrect conclusions about Saddam’s WMD capabilities and, on occasion, went beyond them. But relying on the mistakes of others — completely understandable mistakes given Saddam’s horrendous record — and making errors of judgment are not the same as lying. …
Over the previous 15 years, none of the congressional committees routinely briefed on Iraq’s WMD assessments expressed concern about bias or error. The decision to go to war in Iraq received broad support in Congress from both Republicans and Democrats — and again for good reason. Even if the intelligence community overestimated Saddam Hussein’s WMD capability, it didn’t create it out of thin air. Saddam had used chemical weapons on his own people, killing thousands. He had invaded his neighbors, repeatedly.
No, President Bush did not take America into a war because he was strong-armed by a neoconservative cabal. As President Bush himself famously asserted, he was the “decider.” And no, he didn’t go to war for oil. If we wanted Saddam’s oil, we could have bought it.
President’s Bush decision to go to war was based on the information that he and his team relied on — information that was collected by the world’s top agents and analyzed by the world’s top analysts, including the intelligence agencies of France, Germany and Russia, countries whose leaders did not support going to war. But they all agreed on one thing — Saddam had and was continuing to develop WMD.
Our intelligence professionals, and those of major European countries, overestimated Saddam’s capabilities. Mistakes like that filter through the system — from the White House to Congress to journalists to the public. And those mistakes impact policy. But here’s the key thing to remember — they were mistakes…not lies.
Miller rebuts one particular argument about the pre-war intelligence. It didn’t get “cooked,” she says, but instead the devastation of 9/11 made underestimating threats look a lot more dangerous than overestimating them:
The members of the intelligence community with whom I dealt were overwhelmingly reliable, hardworking and honest. But they were also human, and, in the aftermath of 9/11, they were very wary of ever again underestimating a terrorist threat.
There’s an enduring myth that policy makers pressured intelligence analysts into altering their estimates to suit the Bush administration’s push to war. Yet several thorough, bipartisan inquiries found no evidence of such pressure. What they reveal, instead, is that bad intelligence led to bad policy decisions.
There is no small amount of irony in this argument coming up now. The Department of Defense and the intelligence community have active investigations looking into whether CENTCOM and other analysts have been cooking intelligence to make our anti-ISIS strategy look more successful than it truly is — and bury the threat of ISIS until it was too late. Warnings about cooked intel analyses went all the way to James Clapper, who apparently didn’t do much to correct the issue at the time.
However, several investigations have made clear that this was not the case with Iraq. Bush didn’t lie; he relied on bad intelligence amplified by the heightened concern after 9/11. The Saddam-WMD intel preceded Bush’s term in office, and Democrats before and after 9/11 offered the same warnings about Saddam’s intentions and his preparations. And while WMD was not found in bulk quantities, some undeclared chemical weapons actually were found by US forces after the invasion, as well as records that made clear that Saddam would reconstitute his WMD capabilities after the US and UK finally left. On top of that, Saddam refused to comply with the terms of the 1991 cease-fire and 17 UN resolutions demanding his cooperation.
All of this has been known for a decade. Only conspiracy theorists and manipulative demagogues continue to claim that “Bush lied us into war in Iraq.” Consider it a self-identifying behavior and choose accordingly.
There was a real concern that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear weapons. Whether he would have succeeded will never be known, but the danger may have factored into the decision to remove him. That may be why Joe Wilson made his flimsy assertions (based on conversations with officials in Niger who may have had an interest in lying to him), to make it appear there was no danger than Saddam would get nukes.
“In any event, the sight of miles of Russian trucks heading south into Bekaa valley is etched into our minds, and we are not stupid.”
It didn’t seem to be a big deal to Bush, no matter what was in those trucks. He never made a big deal about it, which is completely ridiculous if the reason to invade supposedly included possible WMDs.
Freegards
Yes it was, but you obviously knew who I was talking about.........That's a good thing.
So you retire to your spread outside of town and play with your grandkids and read your detective novels. Two years later, the town is burned to the ground. Many dead, lives ruined, wealth lost.
You didn't cause it, but you damn sure helped bring it about.
He needed to follow up the Iraq war by destabilizing the Iran regime, and helping with its overthrow. It was ripe for that, so long as Americans didn’t invade. Instead, Bush focused on Iraq, and didn’t retaliate when Iran killed American soldiers on a daily basis. Ridiculous. If that was the plan, he should have just killed Saddam, replaced him with a Baath stooge of our own, and left town to leave the Iraqis and Iranians to kill each other.
And he didn’t bother warning America about the impending Leftist disaster Obama who would rapidly reverse any gains we made. He let the left hang Katrina’s dead around his neck. Man, screw politics.
He lied. Read his speech to the UN General Assembly.
In my view, the two most damning things about Bush are:
1. His failure to defend himself during his administration.
2. His failure to EVER say a word about the most damaging President in the history of the United States: Barack Obama.
#1 made him into a failed President.
#2 made him into a failed ex-President.
He is not stupid. But even stupidity would not be enough to explain either of these.
He sincerely believed what he said, but he exaggerated the evidence for his view.
Something similar is common in politics. Politicians believe in the "greater truth" which they must defend at all costs, even if means saying things that they don't have real evidence for.
It's not just politicians, either. Their supporters and opponents can be the same way.
Why even bother to kill Saddam? Should have had the Saudis pay him $100 Billion to attack Iran (again).
RE: He lied. Read his speech to the UN General Assembly.
This is the text of GWB’s speech to the UN General Assembly:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/12/iraq.usa3
Can you tell me where in his speech he lied?
Which part was a lie?
Old wmd from the Iran/Iraq war[that later the Bush admin didn't take responsibility in medically helping our boys] was not reason enough to 'invade' Iraq, nor was the destability of the region weighed against Iraq even having new weapons.
No matter how bad SH was, he still was more of a stabilizing force than we ever could have become, and a natural bulwark against Iran.
Nor was the costs of the invasion ever properly explained or reasoned. We will be paying for those miscalculations for generations.
Not only that but there has been no public review of the policies and practices of the intelligence failure in supporting such a intervention, nor has anyone been held accountable for such actions. As with the typical government actions.
That was an option. I always thought Saddam had a hand in 9-11 in some fashion. There was that training ground where an old jet was, and some indications that Saddam knew 9-11 was coming. Also, it was clear that Saddam was going to work on getting America back at some point, it was only a matter of time. Probably better to eliminate him, but perhaps not, with hindsight.
Since Saddam and Al Qaeda were not natural allies, but had common enemies, I assume that Saddam used his intel networks to give some sort of operational support to AQ, perhaps without knowing they were up to something so big. I can see Saddam wanting to use AQ just enough to hurt and distract the US, short of triggering a massive response.
Bump.....
SH invaded two neighboring countries, fired SCUD missiles at Israel, harbored international terrorists, practiced genocide against the Kurds, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, plotted to assassinate a US president.
He received is just reward IMHO. GWB won the war against this mini-Hitler in the Middle East and BHO surrendered Iraq. I am at least grateful SH received his just reward in the end and that he was captured, brought to trial, and had to be held into account for his massive war crimes, genocide, violations of international law, support of terrorism, and ethnic cleansing.
And kept the animals in check. I'd rather have a SH than the flames of muslim jihad burning down the ME right now.
The largest chemical weapons manufacturing facility in the world was located inside Iraq just outside Baghdad when we marched into the city.
Duelfer Report on Chemical Weapons in Iraq
Praying that Trump or some significant emotional event shatters the MSM's hypnotism over the sheeple.
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