Do you really believe Bush Lied? It makes no sense.

[jman220]

Regarding our reasons for entering the Iraq war. It would clearly seem that pursuing "Weapons of Mass Destruction" was not our primary goal, nation-building was. However, it doesn't make sense to argue that Bush "lied" about the WMD. It seems far more likely that his administration was simply vastly incompetent at intelligence gathering, analysis, and interpretation. If the Bush administration *knew* that there were no WMD in Iraq, it would be completely illogical to lie about it in order to get us into the war. Why? Because his administration would have to know that after a few years of being in Iraq, when no WMD were found, it would come back to bite them in the ass. And while Bush may be dumb enough to not think this far ahead, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove certainly aren't. Can anyone provide a counter-argument to this?

[tolbiny]

Can't it be both? Your average american wouldn't give a crap about WMDs if the military had rolled in there, crushed Saddam's army, and set up a stable government. If 2 years after the invasion there was no real insurgancy anything short of absolute proof of the administration lying would be brushed off by the "but the Iraqi's are so much better off now" crowd. A war in which Americans do "great" things isn't going to be criticized by and large by the public, they gain a national pride out of stuff like that, so as long as the administration thought that it could pull of the occupation without much difficulty they really don't have much to fear from accusations of lying.

[irvman21]

I've brought this up multiple times in discussions with the Bush hating members of my family. Their answer is that everyone in his administartion is so incompetent, nobody thought about the ramifications of lying initially. I pass no judgement on how moronic this explanation is.
WMD's were an attempt to sell the war to the UN, nothing else.

[ACPlayer]

The Bush administration knowingly lied -- in the sense of an exaggeration being a lie.(IMO).

They then compounded it with the simple minded view that we would be seen as liberating heroes, welcomed and in a few short months a pro-US, democracy would be functioning with the help of the US Army.

If the second had come true, the first would have been irrelevant. Oil would be flowing from Iraq, via US contractors, the Army would be ready to continue its primary mission these days -- serving and protecting the Israeli state, happy times.

Like the fish, the play was made looking at our cards only.

[andyfox]

All governments lie, especially when they are going to war. They don't care about what will or won't be found out later, they spin it so it looks OK. No WMDs were found, yet Bush still won reelection and the Republicans retained control of Congress.

Compare the example of Vietnam. Our government lied about it continually from day one. Yet support for the war remained strong, despite the anti-war movement and the revelations of the Pentagon Papers. Richard Nixon won reelection in a landslide in 1972. And later on, many people believe that the war was "lost" by those who opposed it, or told the truth about it. The Big Lie often lives on.

Immediately after 9/11, the vast majority of Americans correctly assumed that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. But on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, most thought he did. How did that happen?

[andyfox]

"WMD's were an attempt to sell the war to the UN"

Powell went there with a brief case full of lies, half-truths and exaggerations. A sales job indeed.

[andyfox]

It may well be that the Bush administration believed Chalabi's fantasies and that, indeed, we could bring about an Edenic Iraq in a couple of years and all would be either forgiven or forgotten about teh reasons promulgated for going in there in the first place. Certainly the administration's willful ignoring of the advice of experts both within and outside the government on what would happen in the wake of the occupation give substance to the claim that they felt we could remake the country in our image in relatively short order.

There is also the sense that the administration didn't care about counter-arguments, the important thing was going in there and getting rid of Hussein and everything else be damned. Certainly key members of the administration had been calling for regime change in Iraq long before 9/11. So they needed excuses to go in. 9/11 and the possibility of another 9/11 provided them.

I'm still amazed that people find it incredible that the government could have lied about this. EVERY GOVERNMENT LIES WHEN IT GOES TO WAR. The incredible thing would have been if they didn't lie. The issues are always framed in terms of good and evil, with the good, by definition, being our side, and the evil the other side.

[wopples]

the 3 people you just mentioned are very intelligent and are acomplishing what they want..... go the new american century website and you will see that they have wanted to go to the middle east long before 9 11 which leads me to believ that they did 9 11 if you look at any facts of the circumstances behind the events you will see that logically the governments official story and the 9 11 commision investigation make no common sense when compared with fact of the day....

bush and cheney rubsfield and rove are not "vastly incompetent at all"

they are very intelligent people with no morals and planned 9 11 to take our freedom and money....

through the patriot act and war....

the elite world government has its grip on usa until we can elect a third party and get out the beurocrats....

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm still amazed that people find it incredible that the government could have lied about this. EVERY GOVERNMENT LIES WHEN IT GOES TO WAR. The incredible thing would have been if they didn't lie. The issues are always framed in terms of good and evil, with the good, by definition, being our side, and the evil the other side.

[/ QUOTE ]

Andy, you're my favorite Democrat in the whole world [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BillUCF]

The WMD question has been settled. They were there. Some were destroyed by Saddam prior to the war, some have been found, some have been used against coalition troops, some were moved to Syria, and some are probably still there waiting to be discovered.

There have been dozens of news stories about WMD found in Iraq in the last 2-3 years. Anyone who watches the news occasionally would know this.

Bush knew it.
Clinton knew it.
Congress knew it.
The UN weapons inspectors knew it.
Tony Blair knew it.
Saddam Hussein knew it.
Every government with an international intelligence agency knew it.