Stephanopoulos: Bush Knowingly Misled on Nuke Threat

NewsMax.com ^ | Nov. 14, 2005 | Carl Limbacher

[Carl/NewsMax]

Former Clinton communications director-turned-ABC "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos charged Monday that President Bush deliberately hyped intelligence on Saddam Hussein's nuclear threat that he knew wasn't true.

"There's no question that the administration hyped the nuclear program," Stephanopoulos told radio host Don Imus. "Especially when they go out and say, you know, there could be a mushroom cloud coming from Iraq."

"They knew better than that," the one-time top Clinton aide declared.

In a nationally televised address on Oct 7, 2002, President Bush warned of "the threat gathering against us" from Iraq, adding: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

Asked if he thought Bush had flat-out lied in statements like that, Stephanopoulos said Bush "certainly exaggerated beyond reason."

"I hate to use that word lying," he explained, since "there was some evidence on the other side. I just think they were willfully ignoring the counter-evidence."

The two men who led post-invasion WMD search teams, however, tend to side with the Bush White House on Saddam's nuclear threat.

Testifying in 2003 about suspicious activity at Iraq's al Tuwaitha nuclear weapons research facility, Iraq Survey Group Chief David Kay told Congress:

"[The Iraqis] started building new buildings, renovating it, hiring some new staff and bringing them together. And they ran a few physics experiments, re-ran experiments they'd actually run in the '80s."

"Given their history," said Kay, "it was certainly an emerging program that I would not have looked forward to their continuing to pursue."

Kay's successor, Charles Duelfer, also confirmed that weapons research at al Tuwaitha was continuing right up until the U.S. invasion, telling Congress in 2004 that Saddam's scientists were "preserving and expanding [their] knowledge to design and develop nuclear weapons."

One laboratory at al Tuwaitha, Duelfer said, "was intentionally focused on research applicable for nuclear weapons development."

[yldstrk]

Yeah, Stephie, you are about as believable as your old boss...

[Just mythoughts]

Woody wood pecker sure ought to know about "lies"!!!!

[MEG33]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1521649/posts
Tim Russert - Democrat Shill

Another example of misleading the American public..Russert deliberately misled..

[BonnieJ]

They're all setting up impeachment proceedings lately, it is so obvious. Why did it take Republicans so long to respond to such serious and erroneous charges...quite a mystery. But it all will go nowhere ultimately.

[Trajan88]

Stephie... do not you have a cocktail party to attend?

[THX 1138]

Who cares what that punk Stephanopoulos thinks?

[andie74]

And Bush has always had a history of being able to manipulate France and Russia -- they saw the same data and came to the same conclusions.

[Polybius]

Here's Clinton on July 22, 2003, on Larry King Live: "When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for." And in October 2003, some six months after the war ended, Portuguese prime minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso discussed WMD with Clinton. Said Barroso: "When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime."

[ExpatGator]

The Dems must really feel threatened by the President's new counterattack. The little Stephie bitch sounds worried.

[EagleUSA]

Where is your evidence ass&^%$!!!????

The scummy libs are great at false accusations, WITH NO EVIDENCE!!! Let's see it you little maggot!

[stevem]

When did this guy become and expert on lying presidents?

[Enchante]

"The two men who led post-invasion WMD search teams, however, tend to side with the Bush White House on Saddam's nuclear threat."

To Clinton's pet Georgie-boy [pitiful excuse for a "journalist"]: Gee, and do you think Kay and Duelfer might know a little bit more about Saddam's efforts on the nuclear front than you, little Miss Prissy George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's favorite man-child????? Earth to little Georgie-boy: the last time we'd had to deal with Saddam in a big way, in 1991, it turned out that he was far CLOSER to having nuclear weapons than virtually any of the intel in the west had suggested. Estimates after the first Gulf War were that Saddam had come within 12 months or less of having his first nuclear warhead(s) without anyone in the western intel agencies being the wiser. Soooo, in the face of lots of evidence that Saddam was unwilling to truly relinquish his WMD programs, it was a great deal more within 'reason' (that you know nothing about Georgie-boy) to err on the side of caution when assessing the intel picture with Saddam.

[coconutt2000]

I remember the run up to the invasion.

I remember distinctly that Iraq was not billed as an imminent nuclear threat. Iraq was painted, accurately, as a clear and present danger. Saddam Hussein's determined attempts over the decades to obtain nuclear weapons was given as evidence of the danger he posed. His possession of biological and chemical WMD's was not doubted, though the size of his stockpiles was questioned. His possession of manufacturing capability was also not doubted, and the means to produce chemical and biological weapons have been found in Iraq. Most of that equipment is dual purpose, but civilian purpose machinery is never scrubbed down to deny any investigative entity to determine its past history of use. The media, more than anybody else, latched onto the nuclear threat and advanced that idea relentlessly.

In other words, the media advanced and promoted the nuclear threat, and purposefully exaggerated the threat. Now they blame the Bush Administration for misleading them and the American people.

[al baby]

[Txsleuth]

Maybe Stephie is practicing his nasty name-calling and lying as a precursor to working on HIllary campaign...and being Hillary's right-hand man in the White House...

[quantim]

From what I've seen the last 48 hours from C-Span, the MSM, to minions in both halls of congress it seems the dems have unleashed a new talking points campaign to the likes we haven't seen since the election fiasco in 2000.

[EagleClaw]

Give us evidence, or give us silence!

[PhilDragoo]

Staphlococcus can't handle anything more techno than a blow dryer.

Speaking of lies, how about, "Not a single nuclear missile is targeting our children as they sleep in their beds tonight."

That would be Staphlo's godfather, who supplied the ChiComs with the MIRV technology via the 200-page fax of Mssrs. Schwartz and Armstrong, megadonors of El Bento.

Just in: Sandy Berger, formerly Beijing's butt boy at Hogan and Hartson, still not doing his time for the National Archive heist.

Coming up on five years of the new tone and it's going to result in yet more slander, more treason, and a probable impeachment.

Note to WH: butch it up in there.

[Obadiah]

Just another passive "news" person hosting a major network show. Bias, gee, what bias. Old that old saw? That's just a figment of a conservative mind.