Good luck with this one. You'll need it.

Posted by: Chris Wage at November 23, 2004 12:28 PM

I've not found anything rebutting it but the assertions of people like Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter - and the administration themselves. There is certainly a significant amount of information suggesting, if not out-and-out deception, a certain 'loading of the data' for a pre-concieved solution (invasion of Iraq). I would rather believe that our government was above such, but I just don't find anything that would say so.

The gist of the film is that Bush and his team willfully misled about WMD and the Saddam ties to al Qaeda, combined with the assumption that these WERE the justifications for the war.

I'm not sure what your memory says, but mine tells me that it was 1) Al Qaeda/Hussein connection, 2) WMD, and finally, when those didn't pan out, it became 3) Freeing Iraq. This is nothing more than an escalation of the US policy of destabilization in the middle east.

Posted by: Steve at November 23, 2004 9:31 PM

I can only tell you this... during George W's terms as Governor of Texas I worked for a nonprofit government watchdog group and was involved in a rather intense research project as he developed the "No Child Left Behind" educational reform... And I can tell you that no matter what anyone says... or how they try to spin... I discovered from intense observation that anyone who tells you George W tried to deceive the American People... they are full of everything but the truth

I spent years trying to debunk George W because of my job... instead I became convinced that he is one of those rare truly GOOD GUYS... I think that is why the other side is so determined to discredit him.

Posted by: Lori at November 24, 2004 5:31 AM

It's funny, because I believe that Bush is a good guy and means well in most, if not all cases. And that's why I believe that he and the administration flat out lied about Iraq. He wanted to make sure that there was as much support as possible for this war. I'm sorry, it's a good cause. Getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do. The timing might have been bad (finishing up a little more in Afghanistan would have made some sense) but Saddam is gone and we're slowly but surely removing the remnants of his power in Iraq. This cannot be argued against.

The gist of the film is that Bush and his team willfully misled about WMD and the Saddam ties to al Qaeda, combined with the assumption that these WERE the justifications for the war.

Refuting that is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Definitely impossible with the facts that we have at this moment, and I'd be very surprised if anything else pops up.

Posted by: Michael Chaney at November 24, 2004 8:55 AM

Well if (very big if) the Admin lied, so did the Clinton Admin. Not to mention the British, Russian, France, and Germany intell agencies and Governments.

Posted by: Lee at November 24, 2004 1:14 PM

Clinton lie? You must be kidding!

In the Clinton days, it was thought that Saddam still had weapons. There are plenty of quotes from top Dems talking about his WMD program. I have a hilarious clip of a guy going to an anti-war rally and tormenting the loonies with hawkish quotes from Democrats.

But the simple fact is that the inspectors went back, and found nothing. There was evidence that Saddam was trying to hide stuff, but we've found nothing since. A canister of gas or an empty shell aren't evidence, sorry.

Powell was caught in an outright lie concerning the connection with al Qaeda. He played a tape, in Arabic, in which bin Laden could be heard mentioning Saddam's name. Powell cited this as evidence of a connection, but it was immediately laughed at in Arab media- people who understand the language- since bin Laden was calling for Saddam's overthrow. As usual.

Now, there are two possibilities. Either Powell had a bad interpreter- highly unlikely- or he was flat out lying and hoping nobody who understood Arabic would hear it. Those are the only two possibilities, there are no other explanations. Period.

Powell apparently also lied about the "mobile weapons labs". Did the administration lie about WMD? Probably. Did they use the WMD as a basis for the war. Yes.

But! All you liberals who are shaking your heads up and down- pay attention here.

We had a UN resolution that said "Saddam gives weapons inspectors completely unfettered access to any facility or we're going to war. Guess what. He didn't hold up his end of the bargain.

The bottom line is that we had justification for going in, even UN justification. But apparently someone felt that wasn't enough to sell it at home, so they pulled out all the stops and used anything that even was remotely possible as a justification to get the country to go along.

I still think we committed a grave sin by not destroying his regime in 1992. He was able to kill hundreds of thousands of people, destroy the southern marshes and the way of life of the marsh Arabs, well, the list goes on and on, during the intervening 10+ years. Check out www.hrw.org or www.amnesty.org for more details if you're interested.

Anyway, it's obvious that, at the very least, truth was stretched. It's no big deal. It's also no big deal that there was no WMD program. Saddam was an evil dictator with or without, his pending death is nothing but good.

Posted by: Michael Chaney at November 24, 2004 3:14 PM

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