Pre-War Intelligence
CLAIM: “I expected to find the weapons [because] I based my decision on the best intelligence possible. . .The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.”
FACT: The White House was repeatedly warned by the intelligence community. The Washington Post reported this weekend, “President Bush and his top advisers ignored many of the caveats and qualifiers included in the classified report on Saddam Hussein’s weapons.” Specifically, the President made unequivocal statements that Iraq “has got chemical weapons” two months after the DIA concluded that there was “no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons.” Bush said, “Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production” three months after the White House received an intelligence report that clearly indicated Department of Energy experts concluded the tubes were not intended to produce uranium enrichment centrifuges.
CLAIM: “We looked at the intelligence.”
FACT: The White House ignored intelligence warnings. Knight Ridder reported that CIA officers “said President Bush ignored warnings” that his WMD case was weak. And Greg Thielmann, the Bush State Department’s top intelligence official, “said suspicions were presented as fact, and contrary arguments ignored.” Knight Ridder later reported, “Senior diplomatic, intelligence and military officials have charged that Bush and his top aides made assertions about Iraq’s banned weapons programs and alleged links to al-Qaeda that weren’t supported by credible intelligence, and that they ignored intelligence that didn’t support their policies.”
CLAIM: “The international community thought he had weapons.”
FACT: The international community told the White House the opposite. The IAEA and U.N. both repeatedly told the Administration it had no evidence that Iraq possessed WMDs. On Feb. 15, 2003, the IAEA said that, “We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq.” On March 7, 2003, IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said nuclear experts have found “no indication” that Iraq has tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge enrichment of uranium. At the same time, AP reported that, “U.N. weapons inspectors have not found any “smoking guns’ in Iraq during their search for WMD.” AP also reported, “U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said his teams have not uncovered any WMD.”
CLAIM: “I went to Congress with the same intelligence. Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at.”
FACT: Congress was outraged at the presentation by the White House. The New Republic reported, “Senators were outraged to find that intelligence info given to them omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration’s case for war.” According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), many House members were only convinced to support the war after the Administration “showed them a photograph of a small, unmanned airplane spraying a liquid in what appeared to be a test for delivering chemical and biological agents,” despite the US Air Force telling the Administration it “sharply disputed the notion that Iraq’s UAVs were being designed as attack weapons.” Pre-War Assertions
CLAIM: “I believe it is essential that when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It’s too late if they become imminent.”
FACT: The Bush Administration repeatedly claimed that Iraq was an imminent threat before the war — not that it would “become imminent.” Specifically, White House communications director Dan Bartlett was asked on CNN: “Is [Saddam Hussein] an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?” Bartlett replied, “Well, of course he is.” Similarly, when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether America went to war in Iraq because of an imminent threat, he replied, “Absolutely.” And White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the reason NATO allies — including the US — should support the defense of one of its members from Iraq was because “this is about an imminent threat.” Additionally, the Administration used “immediate,” “urgent” and “mortal” to describe the supposed Iraqi threat to the United States.
CLAIM: “I think, if I might remind you, that in my language I called it a grave and gathering threat, but I don’t want to get into word contests.”
FACT: Bush made far more dire statements before the war. While the President did call Iraq a “grave and gathering” threat, that wasn’t all he said. On Nov. 23, 2002, he said Iraq posed a “unique and urgent threat.” On Jan. 3, 2003, he said, “Iraq is a threat to any American.” On Oct. 28, 2002, he said Iraq was “a real and dangerous threat” to America. On Oct. 2, 2002, he said, “The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency” and that Iraq posed “a grave threat” to America.
CLAIM: “Iraq had the capacity to make a weapon and then let that weapon fall into the hands of a shadowy terrorist network.”
FACT: This assertion belies the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate which told the White House that Iraq would most likely only coordinate with Al Qaeda if the US invaded Iraq. As the New York Times reported, “[A] CIA assessment said last October: “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks’ in the United States.” Previously, the CIA had told the White House that Iraq “has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups.” And David Kay himself said, “I found no real connection between WMD and terrorists” in Iraq.
CLAIM: “And when David Kay goes in and says we haven’t found stockpiles yet, and there’s theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we’ll find out.”
FACT: David Kay didn’t say we haven’t found the stockpiles of chemical weapons because they are destroyed, hidden or transported to another country. Kay said that they were never produced and hadn’t been produced since 1991. As he said, “Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW program after 1991. Information found to date suggests that Iraq’s large-scale capability to develop, produce and fill new CW munitions was reduced — if not entirely destroyed — during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections.”
Investigative Commissions
CLAIM: “The reason why we gave it time is because we didn’t want it to be hurried … it’s important that this investigation take its time.”
FACT: Other commissions show that the report is being delayed for political reasons. Regardless of upcoming Parliamentary elections, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has set up a similar commission to investigate intelligence that will report by July. Additionally, in 1983 after the terrorist attack on U.S. troops in Beirut, a commission was appointed and completed its report within two months.
CLAIM: “We have given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton.”
FACT: The White House has stonewalled the 9/11 commissions. According to the Baltimore Sun, President Bush “opposed the outside inquiry” into September 11th. When Congress forced him to relent, Time Magazine reported he tried to choke its funding, noting, “the White House brushed off a request quietly made by 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean” for adequate funding. Then, the NY Times reported, “President Bush declined to commit the White House to turning over highly classified intelligence reports to the independent federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, despite public threats of a subpoena from the bipartisan panel.” And as the Akron Beacon Journal reported last week, “the 9/11 panel did not receive the speedy cooperation it expected. In a preliminary report last summer, the panel’s co-chairmen, Thomas Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey, and Lee Hamilton, a Democrat and former congressman from Indiana, complained about lengthy delays in gaining access to critical documents, federal employees and administration officials. They warned the lack of cooperation would prove damaging.”
Economy/Budgetary Priorities
CLAIM: “How about the fact that we are now increasing jobs or the fact that unemployment is now down to 5.6 percent? There was a winter recession and unemployment went up, and now it’s heading in the right direction.”
FACT: The job market continues to stagnate. Since President Bush’s first tax cut in March 2001, the economy has shed more than two million jobs. In addition, the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors pledged that the President’s “jobs and growth” package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 as part of its pledge to create 5.5 million new jobs by 2004. But the economy added 221,000 jobs since the last tax cut went into effect, meaning the White House has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of their mark.
CLAIM: “There is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs.”
FACT: Statistics show there is not good job momentum. In the last two months we’ve seen an average of 73,000 private sector jobs created. At this pace, we wouldn’t see a new net job created until May 2007. Even beyond the recession and 9/11, just looking at the recovery since November 2001, the current pace of job growth puts us on track to have the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression.
Personal Military Records
CLAIM: Russert — “Would you authorize the release of everything to settle this?” Bush — “Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000 by the way.”
FACT: Those records have been kept off-limits. On May 23, 2000, the Boston Globe reported, “[A]s Bush has risen in public life over the last several years, Texas military officials have put many of his records off-limits and heavily redacted many other pages.”
CLAIM: “I did show up in Alabama.”
FACT: Bush’s unit commander doesn’t believe he showed up for duty. The Boston Globe reports that Bush’s assigned unit commander, William Turnipseed, and his administrative officer, Kenneth K. Lott, do not believe that Bush reported. In an interview Turnipseed said, “Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not. I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.”
This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2004.
