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Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
REPOSTING: If Bush “lied”, so did others
The Democrats in DC are busy lying through their teeth about the President’s alleged “lying” about the reasons he used to justify the war in Iraq. As a result of this nonsense, I feel compelled to repost a blog entry I posted back on Oct.7, 2004 (original posting by me on 6/2/03 on a message board I frequent – this version, however, is modified to include info that was current as of Oct 2004) in response to similar accusations of lying by Democrats towards the administration at that time. Bryan at Junkyard Blog suggests to those who believe Bush lied: Google “Clinton Iraq 1998.” Yours truly has already gone through the trouble of doing so, so without further ado, here’s my post from a year ago – please note at the bottom the links to the second and third pages of this piece:
——
If Bush “lied” so did many others (Originally posted on this blog 10-7-2004)
As you all know, much hay has been made over the ISG report (aka the Duelfer report – links to blogger analysis here) that states essentially that there are no WMD in Iraq. The usual suspects (Kerry and Co.) are jumping all over this as proof positive that the Bush administration “lied” and “misled” people on the ratationale for the Iraq war.
If they did, so do alot of other people – going years back. Let’s start with the Clinton administration – he also believed Iraq possessed WMD and the capability to use the lethal arsenal:
“We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas. And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us. I want the American people to understand first the past how did this crisis come about? And I want them to understand what we must do to protect the national interest, and indeed the interest of all freedom-loving people in the world.
Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days this is way back in 1991 within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That’s what he promised to do.
The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained international experts called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons, against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary, and even against his own people.
And during the Gulf War, Saddam launched Scuds against Saudi Arabia, Israel and Bahrain. Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts: Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.
For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM. In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam’s son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.
Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit? It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.”
And in this shocker, the former President gave the following warning:
“And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who’s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.”
He declared boldly in that same speech:
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors. I am quite confident, from the briefing I have just received from our military leaders, that we can achieve the objective and secure our vital strategic interests. Let me be clear: A military operation cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction capacity. But it can and will leave him significantly worse off than he is now in terms of the ability to threaten the world with these weapons or to attack his neighbors.”
In light of what’s being reported today in newspapers across the world on the ISG report findings regarding the intelligence failures that were, in part, used to justify the full scale 2003 Iraq war, I believe it’s important to note that the former President also believed force was perfectly justified in order to render virtually useless Saddam’s ability to use his WMD to threaten his neighbors … and the free world as well! Just how strong was this belief? Let’s let him tell you – from his December 1998 declaration justifying the US cruise missile attack on Iraq (Operation Desert Fox):
“Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.”
Nuclear arms?? What proof existed of that? Was the President deliberately misleading the American people?
“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces.”
Oh my! That lapdog (please note the sarcasm – that is the unfortunate term used by many anti-war here to describe the very cool British Prime Minister) Tony Blair agreed to send in British forces?? Who trusts that guy anyway?
“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.”
Again, there’s mention of this “nuclear” stuff. Where did the President get his information from??
Apparently, the cruise missile strikes against Iraq back in December 1998 were supposed to be so powerful, so as to oust Saddam Hussien (dare I suggest the term “regime change” as being appropriate here??):
“The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.”
So I conclude that as a result of the cruise missile attacks launched on Iraq by order of former President Bill Clinton back in December 1998 (with the strong backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair but not the backing of the “credit-worthy” UN), that the result of said attacks (after four days) should have resulted in 1) a serious disabling of Iraq’s WMD and nuclear weapons systems and 2) regime change.
Well, in hindsight, we know regime change didn’t happen, but just how were we supposed to know for sure whether or not four days of bombing in December 1998 seriously disabled Saddam’s capability for using his WMD and nuclear programs/arsenals to attack his neighbors – or anywhere in the world, for that matter? It would seem we really didn’t know, since Iraq rejected the move that replaced UNSCOM with UNMOVIC (the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission) in Dec. 1999 and in November of 2000 Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz rejected new weapons inspection proposals.
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Why not release Saddam, let him resume his rule, and everyone can then forget the whole thing. Then the MSM Dems can criticise other things, there must something else they can criticise. President Bush seemingly is always the subject of much criticism.
The main difference between the 2001-03 lies/errors and those before then is that the ones before then didn’t lead us to war, death, billions of dollars spent, etc…
Sister Toldjah,
According to the article that you linked to, where you accuse Democrats of “lying through their teeth”, it’s not just Democrats criticizing the Bush Administration.
Richard Clarke, the former terrorism tsar, and Paul O’Neill, former Treasury secretary, have both said that Mr Bush was obsessed with Iraq immediately after the September 11 attacks.
Richard Haass, the former State Department director of policy planning, told Mr Packer that in June 2002 he had met Mr Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to express the department’s misgivings over going to war. “Save your breath,” she is said to have responded. “The president has already made up his mind.”
Lawrence Wilkerson, for 16 years the top aide to Colin Powell, former secretary of state, stunned Washington last month when he claimed that every critical foreign policy decision in the administration’s first term, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, was made by a small secretive “cabal” headed by Mr Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary. Any dissenting administration voices were ignored. Ms Rice “was simply steamrolled by this cabal”.
Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser who remains the closest friend of former President George H.W. Bush, put much of the blame for the drive to war on Mr Cheney in a New Yorker interview last week.
It’s always about the exceptions to the rule with you, isn’t it Brian? When are you ever going to get it? Do you have it in you to ever criticize a Democrat? Or is it all about ignoring the fact the people the who stand the most to gain of out pinning the label “liar” on the President are **Democrats**, which is why they (not any of the above folks – some of whom are NOT Republicans, as you asserted) held their little closed door session yesterday?
For crying out loud!
h.garner fascinatingly wrote (might I say I’ve heard this talking point before), “The main difference between the 2001-03 lies/errors and those before then is that the ones before then didn’t lead us to war, death, billions of dollars spent, etc…”
If everyone else including France, Germany, British , Russian intelliegence and Kerry, Gore, Albright and Clinton were saying it…. then the world was lying (or in error)
But h.garner have the intellectual honesty to admit that the Democrats are LYING (now) when they say that Bush manipulated the intelligence when it was the same intelligence as before Bush was in office. For the Democrats lies to be true Bush would’ve had to manipulate intelligence at every country’s intelligence agency and before he was elected president. Additionally, the Senate voted in very high numbers authorizing the president to use force. Many of the Democrats that voted yes are now pandering to their rank and file “no solution” Democrats that just want us to pull out of Iraq without regard to what happens if we do that.
Just like the 1995 5 month long lying, the Democrats were doing about the 270 billion dollar cut in Medicare that wasn’t a cut the Democrats can only scare, lie, accuse, attack.
Democrat leaders have NO plan, do not wish to debate on the playing field of ideas, are offering no solutions and are only continuing to attack, lie and scare people.
Just like the all year long attack on Arnold here in CA by the unions… accusing him of cutting education by 2 billion when it isn’t true and CA still is having budget problems when there isn’t a recession anymore. Arnold has increased the spending every year he’s been in office. He essentially signed the budget that the DEMOCRAT legislature gave to him.
Brian, what a waste of a post. You avoided the issue. The intelligence wasn’t manipulated. Bush didn’t lie about the intelligence. It’s been a constant intelligence and set of politicians saying the same things.
You and Clarke can make all the obsessed accusations you want but it doesn’t adress anything with LOGIC or REASON. and won’t convince anyone who reads what the Democrat leadership is accusing Bush of and what’s been the actual case for over a decade (before Bush was in office).
Brian,
You acused me of only parroting Rush Limbaugh. Show me where you don’t parrot Democrat Underground, MoveOn.org, and the DNC talkingpoints. Oh yes. Joshua Micah Marshall is a weak debater and always got his head handed to him by Hugh Hewitt. That is why Marshall refuses to face Hewitt anymore.
Clarke has been discredited so many times and in the 9/11 bipartisan report. Why do you parrot him? Is is because you can’t do your own research or read reports for yourself?
“But h.garner have the intellectual honesty to admit that the Democrats are LYING (now) when they say that Bush manipulated the intelligence when it was the same intelligence as before Bush was in office.”
You mean Bush learned or told us nothing new, and did just as good a job as Clinton on the intelligence? Ok.
But that still leaves behind a point: bush lied, manipulated, was wrong on the intelligence which lead us to an ill-planned war. The others? not so much. And there is a big difference between war and not war.
Well, that post just got printed and put in the permanent reference file. I got into…no lie…a shouting match with another teacher at my school some weeks ago about the whole “lie” thing. His argument evolved from Bush lying to the CIA gave him the intelligence he wanted (and when I pointed out that if the CIA says “A,” and the President bases everything on “A,” then the President has correctly used the material…he said that the CIA only said “A” because the President EXPECTED them to say “A,” which still doesn’t invalidate my point, but he was too F’ING STUPID TO SEE IT!) Anyway, when I finally pointed out why the hell did Russia, France, and the UN ALSO say “A,” the argument suddenly changed to how we’ve tortured and killed thousands of Iraqis…at which point even the left wing department chair told him he was on his own. Two other teachers on campus who are on the Correct Side are ready to jump down his throat if I give the word (he also said that our troops were Nazis), but I figure this was a private argument between he and I. If, however, he goes to his class and dismissively says “Mr. ArizonaTeach thinks this” then he’s in deep trouble, and the hounds will be released. A couple days ago one of my AP kids started to say something about the Supreme Court, then stopped and said “she wasn’t allowed to talk about it,” which makes me wonder some, but whatever. Two weeks ago he couldn’t stop talking about Rowe getting thrown in jail for the Plame affair, and I’ve been a good boy and haven’t run over to his class cackling (which I must admit I did in November 2002 and 2004).
h.garner didn’t understand English and wrote, “You mean Bush learned or told us nothing new, and did just as good a job as Clinton on the intelligence? Ok.
Where did I say that?
1) Was Clinton in the intelligence business?
2) Was Bush in the intelligence business?
Answers no and no. Therefore the answer to your ridiculous question is that neither Bush or Clinton did better on intelligence. They simply told the public what the intelligence agencies of the United States, Britian, France, Russia and Germany found.
They ALL said the same things. Clinton, Albright, Gore, Kerry etc ALL said the same things.
It is apparent that the intelligence agencies were fooled by Saddam and the Democrats as I said are lying now when accusing Bush of manipulating intelligence.
And to further prove that you are lying, I’d like you to say to us what Bush manipulated or lied about concerning intelligence. Be careful what you say!
Let’s say there are 6 companies in the car business. Let’s say the car companies are named United States, Russia, France, Germany, Britain, Iraq.
Let’s say that Iraq is building a new car.
All of the other car companies have intelligence/spy shops trying to keep up to speed on what that new car that Iraq is building has to offer.
All of the car company intelligence/spy shops are saying the same things. That this new car from Iraq will be able to go from 0-60 in 10 seconds, get 20 MPG and transport up to 5 people. Nothing spectacular. Many countries have these cars already.
From year to year the intelligence gathers new information all leading to the same conclusions. In 1998, the CEO of the United States said that Iraq is building a car that goes from 0-60 in 10 seconds, gets 20 MPG and will transport up to 5 people. A bunch of underlings say the same thing. People in the purse string department (accounting) say the same things.
The CEO is replaced with a new CEO at United States.
All of the other companies and United States continue to gather data and issue the same conclusion with their intelligence/spy opeations.
The new CEO says the same thing as the past CEO.
The world finds out that Iraq wasn’t building a car that could go 0-60 in 10 seconds and get 20 MPG and hold 5 people.
The Democrats shout over and over again:
1) The new CEO is lying
2) The new CEO manipulated intelligence
With logic and reasoning the american people figure out that the new CEO is just being attacked by the Democrats (and Brian) inaccurately. And so… the Democrats think they are intelligent by saying, “But Bush got us into war and 2,000 serviemen have died”.
Well. #1) That means you simply disagreed with going to war, but your methods of calling Bush a liar is contemptable. You could just say, you never wanted us to go to war and that you disagree with the war instead of “attacking” with lies.
#2) Now we are there what is your solution today? Bush and we are saying you can’t leave a power and security vacuum to let the Baathists take the country back over. tens of thousands of people would die and it would be on our hands for pulling out too early. What is the liberals response to this? I’ve heard NONE!:???: other than to reiterate that we shouldn’t be there. We need to progress in the conversation. Can you liberals do this and answer the presented problem with us pulling out too early? Or just continue to attack ?
” Therefore the answer to your ridiculous question is that neither Bush or Clinton did better on intelligence”
You’re kidding right? did you really think I mean they were operatives? I’m talking about the intelligence we heard about from their administrations. If it was the same, so be it. But the problem is, one administration took us to war on that intelligence. The other did not.
“It is apparent that the intelligence agencies were fooled by Saddam ”
I thought he would say that he didn’t have any WMD’s.
“And to further prove that you are lying, I’d like you to say to us what Bush manipulated or lied about concerning intelligence.”
He retracted 16 words….
h.garner admits what I’ve been saying all along by saying, “But the problem is, one administration took us to war on that intelligence. The other did not.
So you disagreed with going to war. Why then do you contend that one of the presidents lied? Your tactic is a lie.
h.garner lied and said , “He retracted 16 words”.
Case dismissed.
Sister Toldjah,
The Democrats held the closed door sessions to discuss an investigation of the administration’s use (or misuse) of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, not to label the President a liar. It’s not necessary to hold a closed door session in order to do that.
Part of your justification for supporting the President on this issue in your post was Bill Clinton launched attacks in 1998 against Iraq. The difference between the attacks in 1998 and the invasion in 2003 is that in 1998, President Clinton launched attacks against Iraq because Iraq refused to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein agreed to allow weapons inspectors back into his country, and was not hindering them in their work. President Clinton should have taken a stronger stance towards Iraq and should have demanded that he cooperate with the U.N. weapons inspectors. He should not have let up in using force in order to get Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the inspectors and follow all of the terms of the surrender agreement he made at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. President Clinton also should not have allowed Saddam Hussein to starve his own people after the war.
President Bush was absolutely right to demand that Saddam Hussein allow weapons inspectors back in his country and also to abide by all U.N. resolutions and all terms of his surrender agreement from 1991. By all appearances, Saddam Hussein was cooperating in 2003. It’s debatable whether or not it was necessary to use force in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein or whether just the threat of force, or using limited force to get him to cooperate would have been enough. I do not know what intelligence the president was basing his decision on and I don’t know what the president knew at the time. Based on what I know, it’s possible that President Bush did really consider Iraq to be a threat, so I would not accuse him of lying about weapons programs to justify invading Iraq. I do think that Bush/Cheney were dishonest when they tried to justify invading Iraq by claiming there was cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin. I don’t know of any evidence that supports this.
I don’t see anything unreasonable in wanting to investigate the intelligence that was used in President Bush’s decision to go to war.
PCD,
I don’t just parrot certain people or organizations like you do. My views are based on facts and evidence, not on what someone says.
Apparently you were completely unable to understand what I said in my post. I was not parroting Richard Clarke. I was quoting him. I was not even using his quote to support his position. I was using it to show that it’s not just Democrats who are criticizing President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. Whether or not what he said is credible is irrelevant to what I was discussing.
Baklava,
Like PCD, you completely misunderstood my post and my reason for quoting Richard Clarke (see my above post).
You continue to repeat the same distortion about the Republican Medicare cuts. You have no understanding of how budgets work, that there is no relationship between one year’s budget and another year’s budget, or that the value of the dollar goes down from one year to the next.
You said:
Democrat leaders have NO plan, do not wish to debate on the playing field of ideas, are offering no solutions and are only continuing to attack, lie and scare people.
Once again you are doing nothing more than repeating Rush Limbaugh’s lies. Why aren’t you able to think for yourself? Why do you let someone that is very dishonest and hateful influence you so much? Rush is constantly lying. Once again here are some his lies and distortions from his book and from listening to his show for a few weeks:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895
Republicans seem to have a problem understandig the concept of time. Clinton made these statements in 1998. What happened in 1999?
So it’s possible that Iraq had nuclear weapons at the time Clinton said this, but by early 1999 it is unlikely that Iraq had them. Conditions can actually change over time. Inspections were working. There was no reason to go to war.
“There was no reason to go to war. ”
Uh uh. Please explain then the quotes that came after 1999 from Democrats on Iraq. There were quite a few of them.
BTW, do you have an unbiased source for the above claim?
Well, I didn’t notice before that your post was 3 pages. I don’t think I have to defend all Democrats any more than you have to defend all Republicans. For instance, do you agree with McCain that torture is bad or do you agree with Cheney that torture is fun for the whole family?
I can only assume that the Democrats that made these statements had their reasons. Either they were politically motivated or they actually believed the intelligence they were shown since it was being fixed around the policy of war with Iraq.
I’m not sure what you mean by “unbiased source.” Are you saying the IAEA and the UN are biased or that you don’t trust the site I linked to to report their conclusions accurately?
ArizonaTeach: Wow! You go with your bad self
That sounds pretty typical for an Iraq war debate: point out the facts, and then watch as the anti-war crowd shifts the argument to something else to try and gain the advantage. Too funny.
Leaf: Your source was an “arms control” website … not the UN or IAEA websites.
Brian,
Your post doesn’t make sense. I was laughing at you all weekend. You parrot someone, then you aren’t using his quote? Take a few courses in logic and debate. You’d flunk both unless taught by a liberal ideologue who got his tenure by being Liberal rather than being accomplished.