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Jun

9

Bush Did NOT Lie! — So Says The Washington Post?????

Posted By: 'Okie' | 8:53 am — 6/9/2008 | 1 Comment See comments below:

If you are anything close to being a George W. Bush supporter, one of the most egregious memes from the Left, and the left-sided MSM has been “Bush Lied To Get Us Into Iraq”. That our president sent troops into harms way on a mountain of “evidence” that he knew from the beginning was false and misleading. That over 4,000 of America’s finest have given all because their Commander in Chief has the conscience of a petty thief. You’ve heard this on your nightly news broadcasts, read it in your newspapers, encountered it slipped into entertainment programming, and of course — it never lets up on the Lefty blogs and of course, on ABC’s The View! But, what’s this? Has someone in the MSM, specifically the Washington Post, got a professional death wish or something? Bush didn’t lie?

In today’s article by Fred Hiatt, ‘Bush Lied’? If Only It Were That Simple., the WaPo editorial page editor goes way out on a journalistic limb, oh ya betcha!

There’s no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller’s report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

In the report’s final section, the committee takes issue with Bush’s statements about Saddam Hussein’s intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: “There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.” [emph. mine -- Okie]

Hiatt goes on to make the case that there won’t be much, if any, detraction of the “Bush Lied” catechism on the Left, but that it remains a distraction from the real problem: that our intelligence that our leaders relied upon to make the decision to go to war was “tragically, catastrophically wrong.” Our next president, whether that be Barack Obama or John McCain, will have to rely on our current intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities when dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, the No. Korean nuclear threat, the Pakistani nuclear threat, the Chinese economic and increasing military expansion threat, the growing Russian threat — not to brush aside one of the biggest: the spread of radical Islamic Jihad throughout the Western world.

All that 6-7 years of “Bush Lied — People Died” has done is to make our leaders ever more hesitant to do what has to be done. Makes it harder for them to generate popular support for difficult choices — because if we can convince ourselves that they are lying to us, we don’t have to ask ourselves to come through in the clutch. ‘Cause hey, “You willin’ to die for a lie?” is the question the Left will now always ask.

I like the way the Anchoress wraps up her post about this piece:

Bush did not lie. Others did – lots of others – but Bush did not lie. All he ever said was the same thing Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jay Rockefeller, John Kerry, John Edwards, Madeline Albright and so many others said, over, and over, and over. Either they were all lying, or none of them were, and our intelligence (and much of the world’s and the UN’s) was a catastrophic failure.

Let’s take any remaining steps available, to see that the intel is more reliable in future.

Ditto! You got that!

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  • http://olbroad.com Kate

    Good heavens. What would the libtards have to shout if not “Bush Lied, People Died!”? Wouldn’t quite sound the same if they had to resort to “Bush relied on bad intelligence from numerous sources!” now would it.