Posted on 02/18/2016 5:54:25 AM PST by Kaslin
It's one thing to disagree with the decision to go to war in Iraq. That, believe it or not, was once a minority view. According to a Gallup poll taken in March 2003, the night after the Iraq war began, 76 percent supported President George W. Bush's decision. Two months after the invasion, a Gallup poll found 79 percent of Americans thought the war was justified -- about half of those said, "The war will be justified regardless of whether (weapons of mass destruction) are found."
But in the last GOP debate, Republican candidate front-runner Donald Trump took things to a new level. He not only called the decision to go to war "a big, fat mistake" (and, post-debate, proclaimed it "a disaster") but also said: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none."
That was breathtaking. Neither Hillary Clinton, who voted for the war before later repudiating her vote; nor Barack Obama, who called it "a dumb war" in 2002; nor Bernie Sanders, who called it "the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country" had accused Bush of "lying."
Trump, of course, is not alone. Former Associated Press Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier, for example, once said, "George W. Bush lied us into war in Iraq."
This claim -- by a reporter, no less -- incensed Judge Laurence Silberman, who co-chaired the Robb-Silberman Commission set up by Congress to examine the intel leading up to the Iraq War. In a Wall Street Journal piece called "The Dangerous Lie That 'Bush Lied,'" Silberman said: "I am ... keenly aware of both the intelligence provided to President Bush and his reliance on that intelligence as his primary casus belli. It is astonishing to see the 'Bush lied' allegation evolve from antiwar slogan to journalistic fact. ...
"Our WMD commission carefully examined the interrelationships between the Bush administration and the intelligence community and found no indication anyone in the administration sought to pressure the intelligence community into its findings. ...
"... No one in Washington political circles offered significant disagreement with the intelligence community before the invasion. The National Intelligence Estimate was persuasive -- to the president, to Congress and to the media. ...
"The charge is dangerous because it can take on the air of historical fact -- with potentially dire consequences. I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been 'stabbed in the back' by politicians.
"Sometime in the future, perhaps long after most of us are gone, an American president may need to rely publicly on intelligence reports to support military action. It would be tragic if, at such a critical moment, the president's credibility were undermined by memories of a false charge peddled by the likes of Ron Fournier."
The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who wrote a book about the decision to go to war in Iraq, also said Bush didn't lie: "I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq. And lots of mistakes, but it was Bush telling George Tenet, the CIA director, don't let anyone stretch the case on WMD. And he was the one who was skeptical. And if you try to summarize why we went into Iraq, it was momentum. The war plan kept getting better and easier, and finally at the end, people were saying, hey, look, it will only take a week or two. And early on it looked like it was going to take a year or 18 months. And so Bush pulled the trigger. A mistake certainly can be argued, and there is an abundance of evidence. But there was no lying in this that I could find."
David Kay was the "weapons hunter" sent by George W. Bush after the war to locate the expected stockpiles. He did not find them. But Kay said: "I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. ... .And never -- not in a single case -- was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.'"
Kenneth Pollack, ex-CIA Persian Gulf military analyst and Bill Clinton's top Persian Gulf adviser, disagreed with the timing of the decision to go to war. But he said that all of America's intelligence agencies -- there are 16 -- asserted at the highest level of probability that Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMDs.
Accusing a commander in chief, irrespective of his or her party, of knowingly lying to start a war is serious business. In the Iraq War, almost 4,500 U.S. service members died, to say nothing of the war's cost. To claim that the Bush administration knowingly lied to start the Iraq War is to assert that the CIA was behind 9/11 or that O.J. Simpson was innocent of double homicide.
Facts don't matter. Lack of evidence means presence of proof.
Let me put what you just said thus way, “my car is no longer a car because it is old.”
Trump certainly succeeded in making Hillary’s email problems yesterday’s news. Thirteen years later the GWB lied is AGAIN front and center. It makes no difference what Obama and Hillary have done in the Middle East in the past seven years, it is all because of Bush. Can’t wait to see the Democrats campaign ads with sound bites from the New York Mouth, calling GWB a liar, then the cherry will be how hard Hillary had to work to repair the damage done by Bush and the Republicans.
You are equating Obama with G W Bush?
Mix everything into a stew, huh?
True, Iraq did amend the report but as I recall they never exceeded the amounts that we and the Europeans sold/gave them in the 80’s. Sloppiness? I don’t know what the reason was. Saddam always struck me as a guy that would tell you anything if(he thought it would) it got you to do what he wanted. Saddam kicking out the inspectors was a bad move on his part as he was reasonably successful in corralling them into meaningless activities for the most part.
Ritter? While his work has proven to be reasonably completed and vetted. I can tell you among folks I know that were involved he is regarded with disdain. I can never seem to get to the truth as to why many flat do not like nor trust him.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Hadn’t seriously thought about Iraqi WND’s in years.
That’s exactly what is going to happen, that clip of Trump will be running everyday in your face.
Code Pinko works to destroy the US and enable the enemies of the US.
I wish I knew how to upload a gif....the beating the dead horse one.
I almost expect Cindy Sheehan to start campaigning with Trump.
Exactly
The ‘no wmd’ meme was so dominant that even when they would find wmds the goal posts would move and then it would be not enough to count, or too old, or some excuse.
And Michael Moore was on Megan Kelly trashing Trump and high fiving Megan....
Yeah he should go back to the rat party where he belongs
And Code Pink
They changed it to “They aren’t WMD’s if they aren’t nuclear”.
With Ritter there was something about a honey trap, an underage girl, and pictures.
Tell me about it.
Two of the biggest goal post moving trolls from back then “johngalt” and “burkeman1” contorted logic into Chinese knots in an effort to explain away everything.
Sad to see supposed conservatives swallowing that same tripe hook line and sinker.
ANd then there was Hans Brix. Mr. Magoo.
Maybe the fact that he's a pedophile? There's that.
Who couldn’t find his backside with two hands and a flashlight.
Yes, Blix..
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