Did Bush lie to the American public about wmd's?

[V. Barbarino]

Yes or No...

There is no maybe or dancing, or spining. You must vote Yes or NO before posting anything else!

mr saleen has spoken!!

Btw, with Tech arguing his point, I feel like I"m rodney dangerfield getting yelled at by sam kiniston about world politics ;D

[Guest endymion]

You are going to be vague about the question, get people to pick a side, then tell them what position they are supporting. That position will come from you, not them, because you are trying to get them to affirm a vague position, then you solidify the position later.

You're using methods you learned from Bush. "You pussies all said you were on board in the War On Terror, you all said so, now you have to go to war against Iraq or you're un-American."

Bush misled the American people into going to war with Iraq.

[Guest swirlundergrounder]

Yes. If they had such great intel where are the WMD's? When Collin Powell petitioned the United Nations Security Counsel before the US took Military action he personally identified what were supposedly WMD production sites via satellite photos taken from US satellites.. If the Bush admin' brought this so called credible evidence of WMDs in Iraq before the world then where are those WMD's now?

Fact of the matter is there were never any.... They should have gone after North Korea..which would have been a for sure thing.. At least the N.Korean governement had publicly admitted to the world that they have WMD's....

If there were WMD's found in Iraq wouldn't it be logical that the Bush administration would make the best out of such evidence and tell the world "We told you so" to gain more international support? Use that evidence to gain support amongst the citizens of the United States? Use that evidence against the democratic party during the race for the white house? Tell John Kerry and company..We were right and you were wrong?

I don't understand why people who have responded to this forum via the vote still say that there were WMD's in Iraq.. It just go's to show how mis informed people really are which is unfortunate in this age of information exchange.....

No WMD's in Iraq...Swirlundergrounder has spoken!!!!

[Guest endymion]

I would like to point out that Swirlundergrounder misinterpreted the question in the poll. He took it not as "Did Bush lie as opposed to making a mistake", he took it as "Were the WMD there or were they not, was Bush lying to us or what?"

That illustrates pretty well how Bush put his credibility on the line when he told us that he was certain that he knew what was going on. When he had his army of wingmen go out for him and echo a constant message, he was putting his reputation behind that message. If reality turns out different than he points out then we're going to realize that he was bluffing us. Misleading us into thinking that he knew what he was doing when he didn't. Lying to us.

[bornslippy22]

pointless debate....

[Guest web_norah]

good question for once...........

read the 9/11 report, there is NO connection to Al Queda and Saddam and for the last six months and ever since Saddam was captured, i've been wondering, so where are the WMD...?

[V. Barbarino]

once again, the dancing has begun...

[Guest web_norah]

my answer was NO

so if the answer is no, where are the WMD?

[rbs]

Why would the 9-11 report have infomation on WMD. ???

Totally seperate issue.

[Guest web_norah]

i see where this is going.......have a nice day everyone.

[Guest endymion]

Why would the 9-11 report have infomation on WMD. ???

Totally seperate issue.

Ouch, that's kind of the point.

[rbs]

It wasn't until after 9-11, after Afghanistan that we brought out WMD to invade Iraq. Irrelevant to 9-11 comission report norah mentions.

[Guest endymion]

It wasn't until after 9-11, after Afghanistan that we brought out WMD to invade Iraq. Irrelevant to 9-11 comission report norah mentions.

It's true that the WMD rationalization didn't come out until the administration needed to shift the public's focus from Afghanistan to Iraq.

It is not true that the 9/11 report is irrelevant to the question of whether the administration was misleading us. The administration told us repeatedly that our anger over 9/11 should be directed at Iraq because there was an "operational relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that Iraq was part of the "imminent threat" because the presence of both WMD and an operational relationship would mean that we were in immediate danger and we needed to attack Iraq to save our own skins. That's what we were told. The 9/11 report is relevant because it details what the administration really truly knew to be reality at the time when they were telling us these things. As it turns out they were grossly overstating and oversimplifying and they knew that they were doing so. Many people other than me consider that a lie.

I'm not a big fan of reading what journalists say about government reports, Norah. Rather read it myself. Like lots of other people I have been, and as I posted in Obby's thread this is what the 9/11 report says about Iraq being an "imminent threat" that we needed to attack to save our own skins:

The biggest assertion of 'a relationship' in the report that I have found so far starts on page 228, in Chapter 7. That section is cited all over the report in other places like page 334 of Chapter 10, which is a section that describes the buildup to the Iraq invasion in a way that looks consistent with the accounts in Bob Woodward's book. It describes a rumored meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence in the Czech Republic before 9/11.

That section describes a meeting reported by Czech intelligence between Atta and an Iraqi diplomat at the Iraqi embassy in Prague on April 9, 2001. The report was based on a single report from a single Czech source. Czech intelligence officers and an American who met with the source listed their confidence in his report as only 70 percent. Czech intelligence reported the 70 percent confidence number to the press and the story was widely reported. Czech intelligence later corroborated other intelligence and discovered that the Iraqi diplomat was known to a certainty to have been 70 miles away from the embassy on the day of the reported meeting. That didn't get any press. The Iraqi diplomat is now in custody and has denied that the meeting ever took place. On the Al Qaeda side, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh deny from US custody that the meeting took place. The CIA, FBI and Czech intelligence have been unable to confirm that Atta was ever even in the Czech Republic.

The commission concludes, "The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting."

That's it. That's the "slam dunk" evidence that Saddam's WMD were headed through Al Qaeda to kill us. The WMD that of course didn't exist. All of this was known to Bush as he was telling us that he knew for certain that it was a slam dunk case that there was an "operational relationship" and that we were in danger. That's a lie. If he really did think that there was an operational relationship and he just made a bad call, then fine, that could be called a "mistake" instead of a "lie". But the 9/11 report pretty clearly details exactly what Bush knew when he told us that he was certain and that we needed to support him. He wasn't certain, he had piles of documents contradicting what he was telling us, we have reports on that now and we know that he was lying.

That is why the 9/11 report is relevant.

[V. Barbarino]

more spin........

[Guest web_norah]

it is absolutely clear to me now, how people are blindfolded by the Iraq (Saddam) issue,WMD, Al Queida (Bin Laden) and more importantly the 9/11 Reports.....whats even more appalling is that some feel it is justified that the USA invaded Iraq -naturally, because there were WMD involved, so i refer back to my original statement, WHERE ARE THE WMD?

btw nice graphics Saleen

[Guest endymion]

Gosh Saleen. O'Reilley didn't have a lot of respect for people who blindly ignore evidence and stick to their party line. Do you have any sort of response to the enormously material lie that I just documented, or are you going to ignore that evidence and blindly stick to your party line?

About this poll: I gather that you have been trying to build a foundation for the idea that only a Michael Moore liberal extremist would call Bush a liar. This poll shows you that it's more of a mainstream position than you think. I have also provided solid documentation, not spin, on the lying, which you refuse to read because your partisan prejudice won't allow you to even read it.

So which of us, then, is the partisan robot? You and O'Reilley both vocally oppose the concept of putting on blinders and ignoring the facts in order to support your party line. Actions speak louder than words.

[V. Barbarino]

i just want a one word post, yes or no. You don't even have to explain why, just post yes or no. then i'll read your spin.

[Guest klit]

it is absolutely clear to me now, how people are blindfolded by the Iraq (Saddam) issue,WMD, Al Queida (Bin Laden) and more importantly the 9/11 Reports.....whats even more appalling is that some feel it is justified that the USA invaded Iraq -naturally, because there were WMD involved, so i refer back to my original statement, WHERE ARE THE WMD?

btw nice graphics Saleen

They are not there, we know that. That doesn't change the fact that bush and many others thought he had them. It was a mistake to go in there for wmd since there were no wmd, but in the end at least saddam is gone and hopefully once everything cools down in iraq which will probably be quite a while, at least the people will be without a dictator and have a chance at democracy if it works for them. That was not the reason bush gave for the war, but it is one of the positives. The way the democrats are portraying the war, its as if nothing good came out of it. I agree the us should not have invaded if there were no wmd, but the fact is bush believed they had them. His mistake was weighing in the credible reports he got from sources confirming iraq had wmd more then those that said they may not. Now if you listen to moore, he'll have u believe thats cause of money but I think it has more to do with his past in iraq and feeling attacked after 9/11 even though saddam may have had nothing to do with that.

[Guest klit]

Also norah, you always hate on foxnews for being biased. I wanna know which news station you watch that is not biased?

[Guest endymion]

His mistake was weighing in the credible reports he got from sources confirming iraq had wmd more then those that said they may not.

Regardless of motive, he told us that there was no doubt that the conclusions that his administration had reached were correct. He told us that knowing that there was dissent. That's a lie. This thread is about Saleen's determination to apologize for Bush making mistakes and to characterize them as mistakes rather than lies to try to get people who oppose Bush to stop calling him a liar. Not going to happen, see above documented highly material lie. The question does not relate to motive, it relates to whether the crime happened.

Saleen, I have repeatedly asserted that Bush misled the American public into going to war with Iraq. I have repeatedly characterized the whole campaign of deception as lying and I keep backing up my statements using government reports. Not spin from liberal web sites or articles from liberal media. Government reports. If "I affirm that I believe that the Bush administration misled the American public into going to war with Iraq" is too many words for you to understand then I'm not really sure how to proceed.

[Guest web_norah]

Also norah, you always hate on foxnews for being biased. I wanna know which news station you watch that is not biased?

first of all, i dont watch news on TV (unless it is NY1 for weather report) and if i do it is on PBS though thats rare.

i read the paper, NY Times or The Nation and foreign newswires such as BBC or El Pais from Spain

i dont "hate" on anything -please dont put words in my mouth, i find it appalling that Fox has Bill O Reilly and that their commentaries are abrasive and inflammatory towards the center or what this country considers "the left".

[bornslippy22]

i dont "hate" on anything -please dont put words in my mouth

tell him to "shove it" just like Kerry told that reporter....do it...do it...

[Guest klit]

Also norah, you always hate on foxnews for being biased. I wanna know which news station you watch that is not biased?

first of all, i dont watch news on TV (unless it is NY1 for weather report) and if i do it is on PBS though thats rare.

i read the paper, NY Times or The Nation and foreign newswires such as BBC or El Pais from Spain

i dont "hate" on anything -please dont put words in my mouth, i find it appalling that Fox has Bill O Reilly and that their commentaries are abrasive and inflammatory towards the center or what this country considers "the left".

My bad on saying you "hate" on fox. You don't consider the times or the nation to be biased? Every paper and tv newsbroadcasts are biased to an extent in my opinion.

[Guest klit]

i dont "hate" on anything -please dont put words in my mouth

tell him to "shove it" just like Kerry told that reporter....do it...do it...

LMAO

[Guest web_norah]

i am not against or in favor of Kerry but i wont vote for Bush.....so the "shove it" comment doesnt interest me at all

if you read the Nation or any other newscast ..there may be a degree of bias but it sure doesnt read like Fox ....even the BBC or the Guardian UK, El Pais, etc