Did Bush lie about WMD?

[clk]

This is a continued discussion from this thread: http://63.118.175.191/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1871038752#post1871038752

I argued that Bush knew in February 2003 that there was a good chance Saddam no longer possessed WMD, and that a large part of his Iraq intelligence was wrong. Therefore, I argued that he lied when he continued to claim that there was "no doubt" Saddam had WMD.

Once again you are making conclusions based on limited evidence. This was not the only basis for the decisions. Why do you think ONLY this information is of importance or should have been? Hindsight is wonderful.

It is not a matter of hindsight. US intelligence gave the weapons inspectors a list of the various sites of where we suspected WMD. The inspectors visited these sites and hundreds more, and found nothing. Now, I suppose it is possible that Saddam still had a vast stockpile of WMD, and that he had dug a huge undetectable underground network of tunnels to hide them, but this is highly unlikely. It was more likely that he had slowly destroyed or somehow gotten rid of the WMD over a course of several years.

Yes, and...? You have shown that some of the inteligence was wrong. Ok?

No, not only that 'some' of his intelligence was wrong, but that his main, core intelligence about WMD was wrong.
Look, it doesn't matter if Chalabi himself claims that he has gone to Saddam's palace and seen WMD. When the inspectors go to the palace and find nothing, it automatically invalidates what he says, and throws doubt on his other claims. Same thing for the other intelligence.

No, this is your way of charachterizing the events and the situation. I have little doubt that Bush was absolutely convinced that there was WMD. He just hadn't found proof of it yet and he discounted evidence that did not meet with his world view. He is not alone btw.

It is not relevant what Bush's opinion on WMD was. It was, at the very least, highly dishonest of him to claim "no doubt" when he knew for a fact that there was serious doubt about whether Saddam possessed WMD. Again, even if Clinton had honestly believed that sexual relations did not encompass BJs, he would still have been dishonest to claim he never had sexual relations with Lewinsky.

No, not according to the UN.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that Saddam did not reasonably comply with the inspections that took place in late 2002 and 2003?

 

[claimee]

We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

George W. Bush
May 29, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

 

[RandFan]

I argued that Bush knew in February 2003 that there was a good chance Saddam no longer possessed WMD, and that a large part of his Iraq intelligence was wrong.

Then note your own words "good chance". This does not mean Bush must know there was no WMD. Hope springs eternal and Bush bought the notion that there was WMD.

Therefore, I argued that he lied when he continued to claim that there was "no doubt" Saddam had WMD.

And I addressed this point. It is no more than "puffery", a legal term which basically means to make your case better than it is. The evidence is clear that Bush really believed the WMD was there. He was wrong. Did he ever have doubts? I can't read his mind. Should he have had doubts? Perhaps but this really isn't going anywhere. We are back to speculating.

It is not a matter of hindsight.

Yes it is. When did we KNOW? After the invasion.

US intelligence gave the weapons inspectors a list of the various sites of where we suspected WMD.

"Suspected", that is your word. How do you go from "suspected" to knowledge. All this proves is that our suspicious of where were wrong. It doesn't prove there was no WMD.

No, not only that 'some' of his intelligence was wrong, but that his main, core intelligence about WMD was wrong.

We know NOW. Hindsight.

Look, it doesn't matter if Chalabi himself claims that he has gone to Saddam's palace and seen WMD. When the inspectors go to the palace and find nothing, it automatically invalidates what he says, and throws doubt on his other claims. Same thing for the other intelligence.

This makes no sense. You say that the only intelligence that could be considered is the intelligence we now know to be correct. This is just post hoc reasoning. There was a lot of intelligence. Not just the intelligence you have mentioned. And no it does not automatically invalidate what he says. It shows he was wrong. This IS the nature of intelligence. It routinely is wrong and we don't throw out EVERYTHING. Again, you are using hindsight to determine what was and was not good intelligence based on what we now know. You can argue that Bush should have put more faith in some intelligence than others but you can't argue that we knew because the simple truth is that we didn't. And you can argue all day for years and that fact won't change.

It is not relevant what Bush's opinion on WMD was.

It is absolutely relevant. It is the only thing relevant. You are arguing that he knew. Now you are saying his opinion doesn't matter. Those two arguments are incompatible. You can't say his opinion was wrong but his knowledge was right which is the only way you can argue that he lied.

It was, at the very least, highly dishonest of him to claim "no doubt" when he knew for a fact that there was serious doubt about whether Saddam possessed WMD.

You have not made this case. You think you have but you haven't. You can argue that there was reason why Bush should have had serious doubt or that some had serious doubt. You can't argue Bush's state of mind unless you can read that state of mind. Read Randi's commentary. You will see that having the evidence and accepting the evidence are two different things.

Further, you have not made the case that there was only one conclusion and that conclusion was serious doubt. I reject that conclusion based on post hoc reasoning. At the time we had a lot of reason to suspect that Saddam had WMD.

Again, even if Clinton had honestly believed that sexual relations did not encompass BJs, he would still have been dishonest to claim he never had sexual relations with Lewinsky.

This makes no sense. Bill was playing games with technicalities. He knew his actions were of a sexual nature. If you want to argue that Bush was playing fast and loose with technicalities then fine but you haven't made your case.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that Saddam did not reasonably comply with the inspections that took place in late 2002 and 2003?

I think the events speak for themselves. For 12 years this guy did not comply. He was given an ultimatum. He didn't comply.

 

[clk]

George W. Bush
May 29, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

The US has not found a single chemical, biological or nuclear weapon in Iraq to date. And we sure as hell haven't found the stockpiles that Bush claimed Iraq had.

In his final word, the CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has “gone as far as feasible” and has found nothing, closing an investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were used to justify the 2003 invasion.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/

 

[clk]

Re: Re: Did Bush lie about WMD?

Yes it is. When did we KNOW? After the invasion.

No, we pretty much had an idea before the invasion. Bush said that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD, and had intelligence to back it up. The inspectors visited these sites and hundreds of additional sites, and found nothing. They searched for 7 months, and found nothing. Now is it possible for the inspectors to prove Saddam has no WMD? No, because it is impossible to prove a negative. But at some point, you have to start using Occam's razor. I mean, what's more likely, that Bush's intelligence is actually right, and that Saddam still has stockpiles of WMD that he has managed to hide in a secret, undetectable labryinth of bunkers, or that the intelligence was outdated and exaggerated, and Saddam no longer has WMD? I say the second choice is more likely. This isn't something that could have only been said after the invasion. The same logical argument applied when the inspectors were pulled out of Iraq when Bush started the war.

"Suspected", that is your word. How do you go from "suspected" to knowledge. All this proves is that our suspicious of where were wrong. It doesn't prove there was no WMD.

Like I said, you can't prove a negative. If Bush claims Saddam has a dragon in his garage, then there is no way to disprove it. But if I go to the garage and find nothing, then that throws doubt on Bush's claim. I suppose that it is possible that Saddam moved the dragon from his garage to his mosque, and managed to elude detection from Bush's satellites, but it is highly unlikely.

It is absolutely relevant. It is the only thing relevant. You are arguing that he knew. Now you are saying his opinion doesn't matter. Those two arguments are incompatible. You can't say his opinion was wrong but his knowledge was right which is the only way you can argue that he lied.

You have not made this case. You think you have but you haven't. You can argue that there was reason why Bush should have had serious doubt or that some had serious doubt. You can't argue Bush's state of mind unless you can read that state of mind. Read Randi's commentary. You will see that having the evidence and accepting the evidence are two different things.

This is ridiculous. By this logic, you can excuse anyone from almost any lie. All you would have to do is say that they truly believed that what they were saying was true, and that I can't disprove it because I didn't know their state of mind.

Further, you have not made the case that there was only one conclusion and that conclusion was serious doubt. I reject that conclusion based on post hoc reasoning. At the time we had a lot of reason to suspect that Saddam had WMD.

We had reason to suspect, but that reason was based on intelligence. Furthermore, the inspectors proved a large part of that intelligence wrong. At that point, doubt is definitely an alternative option.

 

[delphi_ote]

Let's not forget that Rumsfeld said more than once that he knew for a fact that they had weapons and that they knew exactly where they were (they were just in places the inspectors couldn't get to.)

If that's not lying, what is?

And what about Tenet's "slam dunk?"

Something like this?

 

[Mark]

The fact that this question is still being debated fills me with hopelessness for the future of my country. Most people only care about supporting their party; they couldn't care less about this country. Only the Party matters.

Hey, while we're at it, let's debate whether or not Nixon knew about the break in, or if Clinton had sex with Monica.

Did Bush lie about WMD? That's not the question. The question is, do we the people care that he lied?

 

[Batman Jr.]

Did Bush lie? Let's see: 1) Bush and company go around trumpeting Saddam Hussein's aluminum tubes as being the indisputable smoking gun in their nuclear weapons case despite tremendous opposition from inside the CIA and a refutation of their claims by a fact-finding mission conducted by the IAEA. 2) At the behest of Dick Cheney, the famous yellowcake statement is included in the SOTU; both the credibility of the Iraq-Niger memo and the British intelligence on which the statement was based were viewed upon by the CIA as being very bad at the time. Condoleezza Rice said shortly after the debacle over the statement that had they known about the issues of the verisimilitude of the Iraq-Niger memo, the statement wouldn't have been included. However, a similar statement was excluded from a speech given just months before because of the same problems with the memo. 3) Colin Powell makes the case for drone aircraft spraying toxic agents over the United States. It was later uncovered in the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that this notion was called "nonsense" by intelligence analysts. 4) Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill describe stories of administration officials possessing an unhealthy, irrational obsession with Saddam Hussein. O'Neill said that the administration's agenda to topple the despot was initiated a mere 10 days after Bush's inauguration! 5) Last but not least, there is the revelation of the Downing Street memo. I just can't see how all of this and more can happen and positing that there was some sort of deception involved in this mess can still remain unreasonable.

 

[RandFan]

The US has not found a single chemical, biological or nuclear weapon in Iraq to date. And we sure as hell haven't found the stockpiles that Bush claimed Iraq had.

Your point?

 

[RandFan]

If that's not lying, what is?

Wrong.Have you ever been confident about something but were wrong?

 

[Cain]

It's often difficult to determine whether or not someone has lied. What we can say with considerable certainty is that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and especially Powell, resorted to bullsh!t. As Harry Frankfurt notes in _On ********_, liars often have a respect for the truth that ********ters lack. A ********ter doesn't care whether or not Saddam really had WMD, as WMD is a pretext to invade.

I'm sure Bush thought WMD would be found and that he would be vindicated. However, the administration completely lied to the public about the extent of the evidence at their disposal. So did Powell with his ******** claim "these are facts, not assertions." (And during Powell's weak case before the U.N., one that swayed a lot of people, Tenet was placed in camera view over his shoulder.)

This is not an administration that deserves defending. Who cares whether or not Bush technically lied? He's a ********ter, and so you shouldn't ******** on behalf of a ********ter. That's ********.

The tubes, the Niger thing, how Powell praised the British paper that was shown a couple days later to be fraudulent (more than half of it plagiarized, grammatical errors and all, from policy journals). Bush's "urgent threat," "gathering threat," claiming we're in "grave danger" and we must invade because we don't want the "smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" (repeated by Rice on television).

What I love most about the entire intelligence debacle is how in the run up to the war the administration, and faithful administration apologists, accused the CIA of sabatoging the president's case. Where does the administration pin the blame after all of its predictions were proven wrong? On the CIA.

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: Re: Did Bush lie about WMD?

No, we pretty much had an idea before the invasion.

No, this is just your assessment based on information we have now.

Bush said that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD, and had intelligence to back it up. The inspectors visited these sites and hundreds of additional sites, and found nothing.

Which showed that the intelligence was wrong. It didn't prove Saddam didn't have WMD and you can keep arguing that it does but it won't change anything.

They searched for 7 months, and found nothing. Now is it possible for the inspectors to prove Saddam has no WMD? No, because it is impossible to prove a negative. But at some point, you have to start using Occam's razor. I mean, what's more likely, that Bush's intelligence is actually right, and that Saddam still has stockpiles of WMD that he has managed to hide in a secret, undetectable labryinth of bunkers, or that the intelligence was outdated and exaggerated, and Saddam no longer has WMD?

Hey, this guy had years to prepare. Yes he could have hidden the weapons. What is more likely? I don't know. With the aid of HINDSIGHT it seems likely he didn't hid them

I say the second choice is more likely.

Well duh! It is demonstrable now.

This isn't something that could have only been said after the invasion. The same logical argument applied when the inspectors were pulled out of Iraq when Bush started the war.

No, one could make the argument but it was not proven. We really did not know. You want to force current information into the past. It just doesn't fly. Bush and others really believed there was WMD and Saddam was just awfully good at hiding it. Hey, he had done it before. It took years before the inspectors caught Saddam hiding part of his weapons program so I don't buy your argument that Bush would have to know. I think an argument can be made that he should have known. But you have not proven Bush lied.

Like I said, you can't prove a negative. If Bush claims Saddam has a dragon in his garage, then there is no way to disprove it. But if I go to the garage and find nothing, then that throws doubt on Bush's claim.

Please note. There never was ANY evidence that Saddam had a dragon. There WAS evidence that there was WMD so your rhetorical device is disingenuous.

If bush had evidence that there was WMD and he also had intelligence where the WMD and we find that the WMD is not there it only proves that the intelligence of WHERE is wrong but it could very well be a very good argument that he doesn't have WMD. If there was no other intelligence then I would agree with you. The problem is that there was other intelligence. Maybe you and I would have come to a different conclusion than Bush but that does not mean that Bush knew there was no WMD or very likely no WMD. Again, Saddam did not comply. That was a very good reason with all of the other intelligence to assume he had WMD.

I suppose that it is possible that Saddam moved the dragon from his garage to his mosque, and managed to elude detection from Bush's satellites, but it is highly unlikely.

There was never any evidence that Saddam ever had a dragon so that really has no bearing. There is evidence that he had WMD and there he was caught hidding WMD so comparing WMD to dragons is simply a rhetorical device that doesn't advance your argument.

This is ridiculous. By this logic, you can excuse anyone from almost any lie. All you would have to do is say that they truly believed that what they were saying was true, and that I can't disprove it because I didn't know their state of mind.

Not at all. There is that which can be proven and that which can't.

Did Clinton lie when he said he didn't know how funds from a defunct savings and loan were funneled into his reelection campaign? I think it very likely. Some people don't. He couldn't be prosecuted for it. The evidence suggests that it is more likely than not that he did lie. Can I prove that he lied? No.

Bush sincerely believed there was WMD and had reason to believe there was. There was historical context and there was Saddam who was acting like an ass and intelligence that said that there was WMD. If there is a basis for a belief and one professes that belief then one must make a decision. You choose to believe Bush lied. I do not. If you want me to believe he lied then prove it.

We had reason to suspect, but that reason was based on intelligence. Furthermore, the inspectors proved a large part of that intelligence wrong. At that point, doubt is definitely an alternative option.

No argument. Bush chose not to take that option. I believe the other option didn't play into his agenda so he didn't work hard to find the truth. Happens every day. Again read Randi's commentary sometime.

 

[RandFan]

I'm sure Bush thought WMD would be found and that he would be vindicated. However, the administration completely lied to the public about the extent of the evidence at their disposal. So did Powell with his ******** claim "these are facts, not assertions." (And during Powell's weak case before the U.N., one that swayed a lot of people, Tenet was placed in camera view over his shoulder.)

While I don't completly agree I don't have any objections with this argument. The reality was so stark from the rhetoric that it does cause one to wonder as to how much the administration inflated the claims. Did they bulls**t? I think to some degree they did.

Thanks Cain,

Damn. I didn't think I would ever say that.

 

[RandFan]

The fact that this question is still being debated fills me with hopelessness for the future of my country. Most people only care about supporting their party; they couldn't care less about this country. Only the Party matters.

Hey, while we're at it, let's debate whether or not Nixon knew about the break in, or if Clinton had sex with Monica.

Did Bush lie about WMD? That's not the question. The question is, do we the people care that he lied?

Well that makes it easy doesn't it. Those who disagree with you are just partisans. You get to decide for everyone what is and isn't right and frame the argument. Perhaps you should contact the moderators and from now on you will be the arbiter of what is and is not true.

 

[Bikewer]

I read Sy Hersh's Chain of Command shortly after it came out, and he was on the radio-interview circuit.

In the section on the lead-up to the war, Hersh claims that individuals in the inner circle of the White House made a concerted effort to discredit/ignore intelligence from the CIA and other sources that were counter to the WMD message that was hoped for.
Intelligence information that was traditionally checked, vetted, and confirmed was disregarded or ignored, while intelligence from questionable sources (like Chalabi) were funnelled to the Oval Office.
Further, a seperate intelligence-gathering unit, the Office Of Special Projects, was put together specifically to collect information from sources that did not meet normal vetting requirements, and again to funnel this "WMD positive" information to the president.

Hersh does not come out and say that Bush was privy to this systematic skewing of information, or that he condoned it, or that he lied about it. He does indicate that this was being done at the highest levels, naming Wolfowitz and others. (I'd have to re-read it to remember everyone)

Interesting to note that (as several political observers have pointed out) many of the "neocon" insiders are now outsiders, either fired, put somewhere else, or "retired".

 

[joe1347]

Not that we'll ever be privy to the private conversation(s) that led up to the decision to invade Iraq - unless the dems get in power again and open hearings - but isn't it possible that the Adminstration realized that the available WMD intelligence was flimsy and assumed (maybe truely believed) that once we (the USA) occupied Iraq, some real evidence would turn up to provide the necessary justification? After all, wasn't hard evidence (i.e, bio chem agents) discovered and destroyed after the first gulf war, proving that if given the chance, Iraq would develop (and deploy) WMD.

As I've mentioned in the past, I think (I'm starting to really believe it now) that the WMD justification wasn't the real reason for the war/invasion and the "slam dunk" wasn't the aluminum tubes but the assumption that Sadaam must be hiding something and we'll definitely find "it" once the country is under our (USA) control. But we didn't find anything. So now what?

 

[shuize]

It's a good thing the invasion was based on more than just WMDs.

 

[Questioninggeller]

George W. Bush
May 29, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

Wow.

 

[clk]

Your point?

claimee seemed to be insinuating that WMD had indeed been found in Iraq. I claimed otherwise.

 

[Orwell]

Well, in this case there's to possibilities:

a) He knew there were no WMDs, therefore he is a liar;

b) He believed there were WMDs in spite of sketchy information and unreliable intelligence, therefore he is a fool.

Your choice!