Klein's Quips

Unfortunately, the argument is not convincing that Bush did not lie about the intelligence of WMD. Few rational people would argue that Bush didn't believe Iraq possessed WMD, but the issue is whether he overstated the evidence to generate support for the war, expecting to find the WMD later.

Bush thought WMD would be found, but could not gather enough support for the war just stating that it was a hunch. Accordingly, Bush overstated the evidence to generate support for the war, and expected to find the weapons later. To Bush's surprise, there was no weapons of mass destruction after all, exposing Bush as the liar that he is. Before the war, Bush was repeatedly asked what tangible evidence he had, to which the reply was always something like the information is classified but trust us we have solid evidence. What a disgrace.

The article simply does not adequately address this issue and more importantly, fails to conclude Bush as the complete ass that he is.

Hey Phil, I agree with this billabong fellow--you went after the easy straw man in this article and left the real issue untouched.

Hey Billabong-

If it was, as you say, "to Bush's surprise" that there were no WMD's, how does that "expose Bush as the liar that he is"?
If he WAS surprised, doesn't that prove Phil's point??

If you make things up, to quicken your attempt to attack a country, believing that you can reassure the public after the invasion, and show them the wmd's when you arrived there, makes it better? - If you have a strong believe but have no facts to prove it, so you go and "create" some charts to show them to the whole world/united nations, is this legitimate??? The Crusaders fought for believe, greed, bloodlust ... - are we coming back again to such times? Where is the Age of Enlightenment gone?

I don't care if Bush had lied whatsoever. Politicans lie. The more important thing is, that his Administration "created" facts to legitmate their politics before the world. This is not politics, this is amoral, this is unethical, this is a crime that costs many innocent lives. If you had a chance to look in the wet eyes of a young woman whose husband, a us-marine, was killed by a bomb in iraq, you would never again say "Bush is a political animal". He was a puppet in his masters hand, called Cheney.

Maybe it was right to invade Iraq. But it was not right to make up a case to do it. The bigger question is: How far is this administration willing to go to deceit the people? And I say, they are going to far. The American People, all Americans, deserve better.

I was even suprised no weapons were found. That doesn't change the fact that the administration hyped the intelligence, expressed more certainty than the evidence warranted, went on a major PR offensive to sell the war, scare the public, etc. But despite all that, I thought they'd find SOMETHING. And I'm sure the administration did too. That's not inconsistent with the fact that these guys are a gang of cynical thugs with no respect for the truth.

Did they care when 70% of the public thought Iraq was involved in Sep.11? Of course not, they were encouraging this by continually insinuating it without technically lying about it. His big pre-war press conference was nauseating to behold as I watched him repeat 9/11 and Iraq like a programmed robot, no matter what the question.

Just in this one instance, even without lying, they managed to express complete contempt for the idea of an informed democracy. A principled democrat (as in someone who believes in democracy) would be troubled by this even if they supported the war. And that's just one part of the big sales job.

Adam

I've recently written an artile defending President Bush and published it to my web. Beyond the political angle, I cite numerous sources and references on this key WMD issue. It's one of the few sources on the web compiling this information. A lot of heart and soul went into this research because it is an interesting subject. Soon to be published. Enjoy. http://www.howardsalter.com/index_02.htm