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.
So the liberal trump is still calling President Bush a liar.
Maybe he should let it go and instead focus these same attacks on hillary who voted to go to war in 2003. As co president she also said many times that saddam had wmd. She used it as the reason for attacking Iraq in 1998.
You Cruz supporters are on your last legs, behind in every poll in every state and nationally, except for the cooked NBC poll. Reduced to posting the same 3 or 4 stories 100 times from every source possible. Mercifully, Saturday is almost here.
“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.””
Well tell Cruz to run on this since it’s such a hanging curveball.
Btw why haven’t we heard Cruz’s views on the Iraq war yet?
Trump is stuck mentally in his liberal phase that he cannot get out of when it comes to Bushs.
They will take a day off, and then they will start up promptly at 12am Monday.
Go Trump!
We know Trump’s views, they are the same as Michael Moore.
he’s just another liberal idiot fooling a bunch of idiot “conservatives” they’ll get what they deserve....VERY SAD!
Maybe Cruz is looking forward and not obsessed with trashing a Republican president like the liberal Trump.
He let his true self get exposed in a moment of hate and bitterness toward the Bushes, If Jeb hadn’t been in the race, Trump wouldn’t have been exposed.
So in this, at least Jeb served a purpose.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.†― Mark Twain
“fooling a bunch of idiot “conservatives—
Just keep digging.
Michael Moore - Bush lied. People died.
Donald Trump - I agree
Code Pink - We agree with Donald Trump
Whatever dude, you're supporting a Code Pink douche, politically aligned with Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin and Michael Moore.
Worship your big orange muppet god, but be honest about what he is - a leftist freak.
Not at all what Trump said. Even the conservative media outlets are lying now.
Defending a Bush at this point in history means you are not being honest or you weren't paying attention.
Done carrying any water for that family that has caused so much destruction.
You know what George H. Bush nickname was/is "give half" well that family is one that one does half the job. Leaves the rest of U.S with a project gone bad.
Call him him a liar call him worse - nobody cares to defend these blue blooded loosers anymore.
Yet Saddam admitted there were. Thus the need for weapons inspectors. It's all outlined in the Authorization for Use of Force in Iraq, passed by a Democrat Senate.
COULTER When U.S. Airways ticket agent Michael Tuohey laid eyes on Mohamed Atta on the morning of 9/11, he got a "chill" and thought to himself, "If this guy doesn't look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does." But then, he says, he gave himself a politically correct "slap," and handed Atta his ticket.
COULTER Atta proceeded to murder 3,000 Americans. But at least no undue scrutiny of Arabs was taking place at U.S. Airports! ......as governor of Florida, Jeb Bush aggressively pushed a bill to allow illegal aliens to get driver's licenses, less than three years AFTER 13 of 19 hijackers used Florida driver's licenses to board the planes on 9/11.
===============================================
9/11 mastermind Atta's drivers license was suspended for
failure to appear in court....he was in the US on an expired visa.
NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT (SNIX) Before 9/11, L/E was
contacted about swarthy Mideast individuals taking flying lessons who
wanted to learn how to takeoff...not how to land.
Lol!
What? So in the general election when the dems rip into him as his being “another Bush” and looking to get us into more middle eastern wars, what is he going to say?
Uh, I neither will be like or not like how Bush was?
He would be the first candidate to utterly pretend like one of the most important issues still hanging over the nation...just never happened.
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