Bush Still Lies about Iraqi Inspections
According to the text of the ABC News interview, which was released Dec. 1, Gibson asked Bush, “If the [U.S.] intelligence had been right [and revealed no Iraq WMD], would there have been an Iraq War?”
Bush answered, “Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld.”
Of course, the historical record is clear: Hussein did let U.N. arms inspectors into Iraq in the fall of 2002 to search any site of their choosing. Their travels around Iraq in white vans were recorded daily by the international news media, as they found no evidence that Iraq had WMD stockpiles, even at sites targeted by U.S. intelligence.
Hussein and his government also declared publicly that they didn’t possess WMD, including providing the United Nations a 12,000-page declaration on Dec. 7, 2002, explaining how Iraq’s stocks of chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed in the 1990s.
However, still set on invading, Bush forced the U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq in March 2003…
Bush’s continued insistance that weapons inspectors were never in Iraq, despite little things like photos and video tape, government documents and press reports, is such an obvious whopper, one wonders if he doesn’t see it as a game. In 2006 Joe Conason wrote in this article “Saddam chose to deny inspectors”,
As the Washington Post noted the following day, “the president’s assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.” That was putting it rather blandly (as I suggested here). The POTUS had denied reality, and the press corps blinked. The New York Times didn’t even report his bizarre statement, and the rest of the media followed along meekly.
ABC’s Charlie Gibsons correct Bush in this recent interview either. Has the lie been told for so long and so often that Bush, ala O.J. Simpson’s murders, believes it and most of the media doesn’t care. Bush and his sycophants still like to dazzle their detractors with the ‘diplomatic’ route failed nonsense about U.N. Resolution 1441 and Saddam’s noncompliance. Saddam did comply. Bush said he didn’t, keeps saying and shows no signs of giving up his purely invented history of how we got caught up in some bloody nation building. We knew then and we know now that Saddam destroyed his WMD capability back in the 90s. When Gibson asked Bush about his regrets if any regarding Iraq Bush said, “That is a do-over that I can’t do,” What a bizarre dissociation from a series of cold calculated lies and distortion that lead to so many needless deaths.
Keep in mind that Bush has had eight years to do this, Unions Angered as Bush Further Limits Eligibility
Government unions yesterday criticized a White House executive order that bars certain workers at five federal departments from joining a union because they are engaged in intelligence gathering, investigations and other national security work.
[ ]…ATF employees “have had collective bargaining rights for more than 30 years and there is no indication that having those rights interfered with their mission before,” Kelley said in a statement, vowing to work with President-elect Barack Obama’s administration to overturn Bush’s order.
Peter Winch, national organizer for the American Federation of Government Employees, called the move “an abuse of discretion in the last few days” of Bush’s tenure, noting that ATF was reorganized and moved from Treasury to the Justice Department in 2003.
To paraphrase Mr. Winch, what has happened in the last few weeks or since 2003 to suddenly make having some bargaining rights a threat to national security. After the last eight years, in failure after failure – from 9-11 to Iraq – why would Bush think he would be the best judge of what is best for our national security. Maybe President Obama’s first executive order should be that Bush and Cheney have to past a mental competency exam in order to collect their government benefits and have taxpayers provided Secret Service protection.
The Long Goodbye 