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.
FR was on the front lines at Walter Reed to counter Code Pink. I never thought that I'd see the day when posters would side with Code Pink. I am appalled.
Isn’t Trump bright enough to know he would hurt himself by parroting the Code Pinko line?
I've been a stalwart supporter but cut the sh*t.
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. Mark Twain
Pray tell, I would love to know what your ears think they heard?
He didn’t but let’s just say for the fun of it, that Bush did lie.........the only good this does, because it has nothing to do with today, is to RESSURECT THE DEMOCRATS talking points which GOT OBAMA ELECTED IN 2008 and helped in 2012.
WHY IS THIS TRUMP DOING THIS?
Great set of quotes.
Jeb could yet serve a useful purpose if he would latch onto this reality check of what the REAL situation was.
Trump cannot put this toothpaste back into the tube and those who desperately try to defend his crazy / leftist talk pretty much look ridiculous.
.
Seems to be what he’s doing lately.
I have an acquaintance that I met through a good friend. This guy was heavily involved in the search for WMD’s in Iraq. I believe his stories, they match released information very well. It is his contention that Saddam was being told by his own staff that the WMD’s were being developed and the factories were built etc; when the truth was that very little if anything was actually being done. Saddam just went along with it probably due to the big guy persona.
It is also this guy's contention that the CIA in particular told W what they thought he wanted to hear about Saddam.
I take from your post you agree that Bush lied?
It most certainly is what he said. Just because you want to pretend he didn’t doesn’t mean it’s not true.
He’s a loud mouthed punk.
I detest Code Pinko.
Why does Trump parrot Code Pinko mantras?
Ok Code Pink....where are the aliens in this skreed
Did the “half a million US national text pager intercepts” covering a “24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.”” prove the CIA knew about it?
I haven’t read them myself but surely by now someone would have shared the proof?
http://911blogger.com/news/2010-07-22/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-annoyed-911-truth
Donald Trump is quoting and agreeing with Code Pinko?
To make what point?
It is all about Trump, this isn’t some other candidate attacking Trump, this is Trump and nothing but
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