Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) ’s Europe division, revealed that in the fall of 2002, George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director George Tenet that Iraq’s foreign minister — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program.
What’s the difference?Here are the Bush Administration’s statements about WMDs and Iraq that turned out to be untrue. In the next section, I will show they were not just errors, but bald lies.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), 2003-12-16 in an interview with Diane Sawyer, excusing his lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, by claiming that there was no difference between having weapons and wanting to have them.
Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002-10-07, on evidence for Iraq’s non-existent nukes.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), 2003-03-17
Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002-10-07. These tubes turned out to be nothing more threatening than the tubing used to construct playground equipment.
We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We’re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for missions targeting the United States.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002-10-07, on Iraq’s non-existent drones capable of launching an attack on the USA.
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 (1946-07-06 age:71), 2005-05-23, Interview of the President by TVP (Television Poland), Poland. If he found them, what happened to them?
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Speech to UN (United Nations) General Assembly, 2002-09-12
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), State of the Union Address, 2003-01-28
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), State of the Union Address, 2003-01-28. The documents supporting this turned were crudely forged.
The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25 cubic metres (32.70 cubic yards) of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), State of the Union Address, 2003-01-28 This was a bit of dissembling, using out-of-date information to imply Saddam was still armed even though inspectors found no traces. What would constitute evidence something was destroyed other than by allowing inspectors to see for themselves it no longer exists, which Saddam did.
The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38 cubic metres (49.70 cubic yards) of botulinum toxin — enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), State of the Union Address, 2003-01-28 This was a bit of dissembling, using out-of-date information to imply Saddam was still armed even though inspectors found no traces.
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Radio address, 2003-02-08
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), Address to the nation, 2003-03-17
While we were here in this Council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads had been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection.
~ General Colin Powell (1937-04-05 age:81), 2003-02-05
We know he has been absolutely trying to acquire nuclear weapons and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,
~ Dick Cheney (1941-01-30 age:77), Meet the Press, 2003-03-16
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
~ Dick Cheney (1941-01-30 age:77), Speech to VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) convention, 2002-08-26
For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
~ Paul Wolfowitz (1943-12-22 age:74) Vanity Fair Interview, 2003-05-28
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly… all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
~ Ari Fleischer (1960-10-13 age:57), Press Briefing, 2003-03-21
But make no mistake — as I said earlier — we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.
~ Ari Fleischer (1960-10-13 age:57), Press Briefing, 2003-04-10
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
~ Ari Fleischer (1960-10-13 age:57), Press Briefing, 2002-12-02
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly… all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
~ Ari Fleischer (1960-10-13 age:57), Press Briefing, 2003-03-22
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And … as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
~ Tommy Franks (1945-06-17 age:72), General, Press Conference, 2003-03-22
I have no doubt we’re going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
~ Ken Adelman (1946-06-09 age:71), Defense Policy Board member, Washington Post, 2003-03-23
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction). There are a number of sites.
~ Patricia Clark , Pentagon Spokeswoman, Press Briefing, 2003-03-22
We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
~ Donald Rumsfeld (1932-07-09 age:85), secretary of War, Washington Post, op-ed, 2003-04-09
The [Iraq] war could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
~ Donald Rumsfeld (1932-07-09 age:85), secretary of War, 2003-02-07, apparently not.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)
Many people are willing to let Bush off the hook for not finding any WMDs. They say the poor man was mislead by faulty intelligence.
I say that is not true. He knowingly lied. Here are 23 reasons why I think this.
These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary.
~ Carl Levin (1934-06-28 age:83), Senator, 2005-04-16
From the very first instance it was about Iraq. I was all about finding away to do it. That was the tone of it: the President saying Go find me a way to do this.
~ Paul O’Neill (1935-12-04 age:82), treasury secretary, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind.
I expected to go back to a round of meetings [on 2001-09-12], examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realised with an almost sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were trying to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq. My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometimes in 2002.
~ Richard A. Clarke (1951 age:66), White House Counter Terrorism Chief, Against All Enemies
For reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on one issue everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction…
~ Paul Wolfowitz (1943-12-22 age:74) Vanity Fair, 2003-06
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.
~ PNAC (1997 age:20) Rebuilding American Defenses
While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
~ PNAC (1997 age:20) PNAC the defunct neocon website 2000-09, Rebuilding American Defenses
But long before the war started, there was plenty of doubt among intelligence analysts about Saddam’s weapons.
~ General Colin Powell (1937-04-05 age:81) on 60 Minutes 2004-02-04
All this was inspired by the principle — which is quite true in itself — that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
~ Adolf Hitler (1889-04-20 1945-04-30 age:56), Mein Kampf
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