Iraq fundamentals, part 1
Official statements on Iraq
Note : this link no longer functions. A partial list survives in the comments.
Unraveling the U.S. war lies
Bogus Reasons for War.
10 Appalling Lies we were told about Iraq.
The cost of war.
Bush's shifting rationale for war.
Note : this link no longer functions. A partial list survives in the comments.
Unraveling the U.S. war lies
Bogus Reasons for War.
10 Appalling Lies we were told about Iraq.
The cost of war.
Bush's shifting rationale for war.
posted by Management at 11:22 PM
5 Comments:
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program."
Source: Morning Edition, NPR (1/22/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"I continue to believe. I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government. We've discovered since documents indicating that a guy named Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was a part of the team that attacked the World Trade Center in '93, when he arrived back in Iraq was put on the payroll and provided a house, safe harbor and sanctuary. That's public information now. So Saddam Hussein had an established track record of providing safe harbor and sanctuary for terrorists. . . . I mean, this is a guy who was an advocate and a supporter of terrorism whenever it suited his purpose, and I'm very confident that there was an established relationship there."
Source: Morning Edition, NPR (1/22/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. His regime cultivated ties to terror, including the al Qaeda network, and had built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction."
Source: Richard B. Cheney Delivers Remarks to Veterans at the Arizona Wing Museum, White House (1/15/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. His regime cultivated ties to terror, including the al Qaeda network, and had built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction."
Source: Richard B. Cheney Delivers Remarks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, White House (1/14/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent with that -- basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program, and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon within a year or two."
Source: Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community's deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program. In addition, it failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"QUESTION: When I was in Iraq, some of the soldiers said they believed they were fighting because of the Sept. 11 attacks and because they thought Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaida. You've repeatedly cited such links. . . . I wanted to ask you what you'd say to those soldiers, and were those soldiers misled at all? VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: . . . . With respect to . . . the general relationship. . . . One place you ought to go look is an article that Stephen Hayes did in the Weekly Standard . . . That goes through and lays out in some detail, based on an assessment that was done by the Department of Defense and forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committee some weeks ago. That's your best source of information. I can give you a few quick for instances, one the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. QUESTION: Yes, sir . . . . VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: The main perpetrator was a man named Ramzi Yousef. He's now in prison in Colorado. His sidekick in the exercise was a man named Abdul Rahman Yasin. . . Ahman Rahman . . . Yasin is his last name anyway. I can't remember his earlier first names. He fled the United States after the attack, the 1993 attack, went to Iraq, and we know now based on documents that we've captured since we took Baghdad, that they put him on the payroll, gave him a monthly stipend and provided him with a house, sanctuary, in effect, in Iraq, in the aftermath of nine-ele (sic) . . . the 93' attack on the World Trade Center. QUESTION: So you stand by the statements? VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you can look at Zarkawi, (Abu Mussab) al-Zarkawi . . . Who was an al-Qaida associate, who was wounded in Afghanistan, took refuge in Baghdad, working out of Baghdad, worked with the Ansar al Islam group up in northeastern Iraq, that produced a so-called poison factory, a group that we hit when we went into Iraq. . . . We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions."
Source: Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it asserted that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. The statement also refers to the Ansar al Islam group in Northeastern Iraq without acknowledging that this area was not controlled by Saddam Hussein.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"We did have reporting that was public, that came out shortly after the 9/11 attack, provided by the Czech government, suggesting there had been a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, and a man named al-Ani (Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani), who was an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague, at the embassy there, in April of '01, prior to the 9/11 attacks. It has never been -- we've never been able to collect any more information on that. That was the one that possibly tied the two together to 9/11."
Source: Transcript of Interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).
Explanation: This statement is misleading because it describes a Czech government report of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraq intelligence official Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in April 2001 and states that there hasn’t been more information on that, despite the fact that Czech intelligence officials were skeptical about the report; U.S. intelligence had contradictory evidence regarding this report, such as records indicating Atta was in Virginia at the time of the meeting; and the C.I.A. and F.B.I. had concluded the meeting probably didn’t occur.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"We said from the outset that there are several terrorist networks that have global reach and that there were several countries that were harboring terrorists that have global reach. We weren't going into Iraq when we were hit on September 11. And the question is: Well, what do you do about that? If you know there are terrorists and you know there's terrorist states -- Iraq's been a terrorist state for decades -- and you know there are countries harboring terrorists, we believe, correctly, I think, that the only way to deal with it is -- you can't just hunker down and hope they won't hit you again. You simply have to take the battle to them. And we have been consistently working on the Al Qaeda network. We've captured a large number of those folks -- captured or killed -- just as we've now captured or killed a large number of the top 55 Saddam Hussein loyalists."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (11/2/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because by referencing the September 11 attacks in conjunction with discussion of the war on terror in Iraq, it left the impression that Iraq was connected to September 11. In fact, President Bush himself in September 2003 acknowledged that "We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He cultivated ties to terror -- hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, and making payments to the families of suicide bombers. He also had an established relationship with Al Qaida -- providing training to Al Qaida members in areas of poisons, gases and conventional bombs. He built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction."
Source: Richard B. Cheney Delivers Remarks at the James A. Baker, III, Institute for Public Policy, White House (10/18/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it asserted that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"He cultivated ties to terror, hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, making payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. He also had an established relationship with al Qaeda, providing training to al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs."
Source: Remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney at the Heritage Foundation, White House (10/10/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Al Qaida had a base of operation there up in Northeastern Iraq where they ran a large poisons factory for attacks against Europeans and U.S. forces."
Source: Richard B. Cheney Delivers Remarks at a Bush-Cheney 2004 Fund-Raiser, White House (10/5/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. The statement also refers to al Qaeda in Northeastern Iraq without acknowledging that this area was not controlled by Saddam Hussein.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"[I]f we had not paid any attention to the fact that al Qaeda was being hosted in Northeastern Iraq, part of poisons network producing ricin and cyanide that was intended to be used in attacks both in Europe, as well as in North Africa and ignored it, we would have been derelict in our duties and responsibilities."
Source: Vice President Dick Cheney Remarks at Luncheon for Congressman Jim Gerlach, White House (10/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. The statement also refers to al Qaeda in Northeastern Iraq without acknowledging that this area was not controlled by Saddam Hussein.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"If we had had that information and ignored it, if we'd been told, as we were, by the intelligence community that he was capable of producing a nuclear weapon within a year if he could acquire fissile material and ignored it . . . we would have been derelict in our duties and responsibilities."
Source: Vice President Dick Cheney Remarks at Luncheon for Congressman Jim Gerlach, White House (10/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to provide the context that the U.S. intelligence community believed that Iraq probably would not be able to make a nuclear weapon until near the end of the decade.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Al Qaida had a base of operation there up in Northeastern Iraq where they ran a large poisons factory for attacks against Europeans and U.S. forces."
Source: Richard B. Cheney Delivers Remarks at a Bush-Cheney '04 Fund-Raiser, White House (10/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. The statement also refers to al Qaeda in Northeastern Iraq without acknowledging that this area was not controlled by Saddam Hussein.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"It isn't a figment of anyone's imagination that just 15 years ago they gassed and killed 5,000 people with sarin and VX at a place called Halabja I visited just a few weeks ago. They never lost that capability."
Source: Remarks After Meeting with Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs, State Dept (10/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it professed certainty when the intelligence community provided only an "estimate." According to CIA Director George Tenet, "it is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof." In addition, the statement failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"And the reason we had to do Iraq, if you hark back and think about that link between the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, Iraq was the place where we were most fearful that that was most likely to occur, because in Iraq we've had a government -- not only was it one of the worst dictatorships in modern times, but had oftentimes hosted terrorists in the past . . . but also an established relationship with the al Qaeda organization . . . ."
Source: Vice President Dick Cheney Remarks at Luncheon for Congressman Jim Gerlach, White House (10/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"On nuclear there was dissent on the extent of the program and how far along the program might be. How much had he gone to reconstitute? But the judgment of the intelligence community was that he had kept in place his infrastructure, that he was trying to procure items. For instance, there's been a lot of talk about the aluminum tubes but they were prohibited on the list of the nuclear suppliers group for a reason."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/28/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq sought aluminum tubes for use in its nuclear weapons program, failing to mention that the government’s most experienced technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that the tubes were "poorly suited" for this purpose.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"Saddam Hussein -- no one has said that there is evidence that Saddam Hussein directed or controlled 9/11, but let's be very clear, he had ties to al-Qaeda, he had al-Qaeda operatives who had operated out of Baghdad."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/28/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"If we're successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it's not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it's not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/14/2003).
Explanation: This statement is misleading because it states that Iraq is the "heart" of the geographic base for terrorists who assaulted the United States on September 11, despite the fact that intelligence officials do not have evidence that Iraq was linked to the September 11 attack.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"Same on biological weapons--we believe he'd developed the capacity to go mobile with his BW production capability because, again, in reaction to what we had done to him in '91. We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've, since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/14/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"[Since September 11] We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/14/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it asserted that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by Vice President Richard Cheney
"With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (9/14/2003).
Explanation: This statement is misleading because it describes a Czech government report of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraq intelligence official Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in April 2001 and states that there hasn’t been more information on that, despite the fact that Czech intelligence officials were skeptical about the report; U.S. intelligence had contradictory evidence regarding this report, such as records indicating Atta was in Virginia at the time of the meeting; and the C.I.A. and F.B.I. had concluded the meeting probably didn’t occur.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"QUESTION: Do you believe, because this is continually a subject of debate, that there was a link between al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein before the war? MS. RICE: Absolutely. . . . But we know that there was training of al Qaeda in chemical and perhaps biological warfare. We know that the Zarqawi was network out of there, this poisons network that was trying to spread poisons throughout . . . . And there was an Ansar al-Islam, which appears also to try to be operating in Iraq. So yes, the al Qaeda link was there."
Source: Fox News Sunday, Fox News (9/7/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it asserted that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. This statement also failed to mention that Ansar al-Islam was based in the Kurdish area of Iraq beyond Saddam Hussein's control.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"Going into the war against Iraq, we had very strong intelligence. I've been in this business for 20 years. And some of the strongest intelligence cases that I've seen, key judments by our intelligence community that Saddam Hussein . . . had biological and chemical weapons . . . ."
Source: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Interview with ZDF German Television, ZDF German Television (7/31/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"Going into the war against Iraq, we had very strong intelligence. I've been in this business for 20 years. And some of the strongest intelligence cases that I've seen, key judgments by our intelligence community that Saddam Hussein could have a nuclear weapons by the end of the decade, if left unchecked . . . that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program."
Source: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Interview with ZDF German Television, ZDF German Television (7/31/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community's deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"[H]e had . . . an active procurement network to procure items, many of which, by the way, were on the prohibited list of the nuclear suppliers group. There's a reason that they were on the prohibited list of the nuclear supplies group: Magnets, balancing machines, yes, aluminum tubes, about which the consensus view was that they were suitable for use in centrifuges to spin material for nuclear weapons."
Source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS (7/30/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq sought aluminum tubes for use in its nuclear weapons program, failing to mention that the government’s most experienced technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that the tubes were "poorly suited" for this purpose.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"I strongly believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program."
Source: President Bush, Prime Minister Blair Discuss War on Terrorism, White House (7/17/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community's deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"My only point is that, in retrospect, knowing that some of the documents underneath may have been--were, indeed, forgeries, and knowing that apparently there were concerns swirling around about this, had we known that at the time, we would not have put it in. . . . And had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone."
Source: Face the Nation, CBS (7/13/2003).
Explanation: Ms. Rice was responding to questions regarding how the claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa made it into the President's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address. The statement that the Director of Central Intelligence and the CIA did not object to the claim was false. In October 2002, the CIA expressed doubts about the claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet also warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy in October 2002.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"We said they had a nuclear program. That was never any debate."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC (7/13/2003).
Explanation: This statement was false because there were deep divisions within the intelligence community on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"The only thing that was there in the NIE was a kind of a standard INR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages away from the bulk of the NIE. That's the only thing that's there. And you have footnotes all the time in CIA - I mean, in NIEs. So if there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the President was unaware of that concern and as was I."
Source: Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleezza Rice En Route Entebbe, Uganda, White House (7/11/2003).
Explanation: This statement was false. Ms. Rice was claiming in this statement that the doubts intelligence officials had regarding the claim in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq sought uranium in Africa were not communicated to her. In fact, following the issuance of the National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA expressed doubts about the uranium claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. In addition, shortly after the issuance of the NIE, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice's deputy. Further, the fact that INR objected to the NIE's nuclear statements was noted prominently in the first paragraph of the NIE's key judgments.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"Now, I can tell you, if the CIA, the Director of Central Intelligence, had said, take this out of the speech, it would have been gone, without question. What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech - but that's knowing what we know now."
Source: Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleezza Rice En Route Entebbe, Uganda, White House (7/11/2003).
Explanation: The statement that the CIA did not object to the uranium claim is false. In October 2002, the CIA sent two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice, that raised concerns about the claim. In addition, in October 2002, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"[T]he NIE, which, by the way, the Agency was standing by at the time of the . . . State of the Union, and was standing by at the time of the Secretary's speech, has the yellow cake story in it. . . . Now, if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence to that NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the President, to the Vice President, or to me."
Source: Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleezza Rice En Route Entebbe, Uganda, White House (7/11/2003).
Explanation: This statement was false. Ms. Rice made this statement in response to a question about why Secretary Powell had decided against using in his February 5, 2003, remarks the claim that Iraq sought to acquire uranium whereas the President had used the claim just a week earlier in his State of the Union address. The October 1, 2002, National Intelligence Estimate Ms. Rice referenced in her statement did contain the uranium claim. However, subsequent to the issuance of the NIE, the CIA expressed doubts about the claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. Shortly after the issuance of the NIE, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet also warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"So the process is an NIE that is the basis of this, and then if the Agency had reservations about information that was in the NIE, then the DCI -- and I think he will tell you that if he had reservations, he did not make those known to the President, to the Vice President, or to me -- if he had reservations."
Source: Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleezza Rice En Route Entebbe, Uganda, White House (7/11/2003).
Explanation: This statement was false. Ms. Rice was claiming in this statement that the doubts intelligence officials had regarding the claim in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq sought uranium in Africa were not communicated to her. In fact, following the issuance of the National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA expressed doubts about the uranium claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. In addition, shortly after the issuance of the NIE, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice's deputy.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"One item I showed was cartoons of the mobile biological van. They were cartoons, artist's renderings, because we had never seen one of these things, but we had good sourcing on it, excellent sourcing on it. And we knew what it would look like when we found it, so we made those pictures. And I can assure you I didn't just throw those pictures up without having quite a bit of confidence in the information that I had been provided and that Director Tenet had been provided and was now supporting me in the presentation on, sitting right behind me. And we waited. And it took a couple of months, and it took until after the war, until we found a van and another van that pretty much matched what we said it would look like. And I think that's a pretty good indication that we were not cooking the books."
Source: Press Briefing, State Dept (7/10/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"Take the mobile vans that we've been talking about, the biological vans. I can assure you, Sean, that when I presented those vans to the world on the 5th of February and described them, all I could put up were pictures or cartoons that we made of them. And later, we actually found them and showed them to the world."
Source: Interview on the Sean Hannity Show, ABC Radio Network (7/2/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"We have found the mobile biological weapons labs that I could only show cartoons of that day."
Source: Interview on NBC's Today Show with Katie Couric, NBC (6/30/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The imminent threat is that suddenly, this biological warfare lab, for example, could have been put to use."
Source: Interview on NPR's All Things Considered, NPR (6/27/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The mobile biological laboratories that were found and presented to the world, I think, is a further evidence of this, and so, at the same time that we continue our efforts to uncover those weapons programs."
Source: Interview with Al Arabiyya Television, Al Arabiyya (6/23/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"I think that we will be able to demonstrate convincingly through the mobile labs, through documentation, through interviews, through what we find, that we knew what we were speaking about."
Source: Interview by the Associated Press, State Dept (6/12/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory."
Source: Interview by the Associated Press, State Dept (6/12/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"One element that I presented at that time, these biological vans, all I could show was a cartoon drawing of these vans, and everybody said, "Are the vans really there?" And, voila, the vans showed up a few months later. We found them."
Source: Interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, CNN (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"I can assure you that if those biological vans were not biological vans when I said they were on the 5th of February, on the 6th of February Iraq would have hauled those vans out, put them in front of a press conference, gave them to the UNMOVIC inspectors to try to drive a stake in the heart of my presentation. They did not. The reason they did not is they knew what they were."
Source: Interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, CNN (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"And I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found."
Source: Interview on Fox News Sunday with Tony Snow, Fox News (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"We have uncovered the mobile vans and we are continuing to search."
Source: Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"And I think the mobile labs are what I think is a good indication of the kind of thing they are doing."
Source: Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"QUESTION: [T]his is what appeared in the Washington Post: "A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program appears to have been fabricated, the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector said in a report that called into question U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear ambitions. . . . " In light of that, should the president retract those comments? . . . MS. RICE: The president quoted a British paper. We did not know at the time -- no one knew at the time, in our circles -- maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: The statement that "no one knew" about the doubts regarding the uranium claim was false. The statement contradicts the fact that the CIA in October 2002 had expressed doubts about the uranium claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet in October 2002 also had warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy. In addition, the statement contradicts the fact that State Department intelligence officials had stated that this claim was "highly dubious" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that had been provided to top White House officials.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"And there were other attempts to, to get yellow cake from Africa."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq sought uranium from Africa despite the fact that the CIA expressed doubts about the credibility of this claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. CIA Director George Tenet also warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice's deputy. In addition, the statement fails to mention that State Department intelligence officials also concluded that this claim was "highly dubious."
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"At the time that the State of the Union address was prepared, there were also other sources that said that they were, the Iraqis were seeking yellow cake, uranium oxide from Africa."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq sought uranium from Africa despite the fact that the CIA expressed doubts about the credibility of this claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. CIA Director George Tenet also warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice's deputy. In addition, the statement fails to mention that State Department intelligence officials also concluded that this claim was "highly dubious."
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"The intelligence community did not know at that time or at levels that got to us that this, that there was serious questions about this report."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was false. Ms. Rice made this statement in response to the question of how the claim "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" made it into the President's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address. Her statement contradicted the fact that the CIA in October 2002 had expressed doubts about the claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet also in October 2002 had warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy. In addition, Ms. Rice's statement contradicted the fact that State Department intelligence officials had stated that this claim was "highly dubious" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that had been provided to top White House officials.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"Already, we've discovered, uh, uh, trailers, uh, that look remarkably similar to what Colin Powell described in his February 5th speech, biological weapons production facilities."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"QUESTIONS: You are confident you will find weapons of mass destruction. MS. RICE: We are confident that we -- I believe that we will find them. I think that we have already found important clues like the biological weapons laboratories that look surprisingly like what Colin Powell described in his speech."
Source: Meet the Press, NBC (6/8/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents."
Source: President Talks to Troops in Qatar, White House (6/5/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"But let's remember what we've already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that -- dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described."
Source: Capital Report, CNBC (6/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"QUESTION: OK. Let's be careful and precise here, because that's what this whole argument going on right now is about. Do we know that those trailers were used for developing biological weapons? MS. RICE: We know that these trailers look exactly like what was described to us by multiple sources as the capabilities for building or for making biological agents. We know that we have from multiple sources who told us that then and sources who have confirmed it now. Now the Iraqis were not stupid about this. They were able to conceal a lot. They've been able to scrub things down. But I think when the whole picture comes out, we will see that this was an active program."
Source: Capital Report, CNBC (6/3/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"Now we found some mobile labs, we're interviewing people, we have a lot of documents that have come into our possession and we'll be examining that."
Source: Interview on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, State Dept (6/2/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"And we made a case, I made the case to the United Nations just in February as to what we knew, and I showed drawings of a biological laboratory. We found that biological laboratory, now everybody can see it."
Source: Ineterveiw with Italian TV Canale 5, Italian TV Canale 5 (6/2/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"Here's what -- we've discovered a weapons system, biological labs, that Iraq denied she had, and labs that were prohibited under the U.N. resolutions."
Source: President Bush, Russian President Putin Sign Treaty of Moscow, White House (6/1/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The biological weapons facilities, the mobile one that the DIA and CIA put a paper out on the other day, I think make it clear that there is such a capability that's existed over the years."
Source: Press Gaggle, State Dept (5/30/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The presentation I made on the 5th of February, where I put up the cartoons of those biological vans, we didn't just make them up one night. Those were eyewitness accounts of people who had worked in the program and knew what was going on, multiple accounts. We have examined those vans repeatedly for the last several weeks, and we are confident that's what they are. Now there will be other theories that come from time to time -- oh, it was a hydrogen making thing for balloons. No. But, there's not question in the mind of the intelligence community as to what it was designed for. And so that is a case of clear solid evidence."
Source: Press Gaggle, State Dept (5/30/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"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."
Source: Interview of the President by TVP, Poland, White House (5/29/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"Now people are saying, "Well, why haven't we found anything?" And I would respond by saying, A, it's going take some time, and B, we have found things. The CIA very recently, I believe, issued a declassified document on their website, where someone can actually go and find photographs and data that discusses these mobile laboratories, which are precisely what Secretary Powell talked about to the United Nations."
Source: Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio (5/29/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories. We have people who are telling that they worked in these vehicles. And they look at panels and say, "That was my work station in that panel, and that's what it's for.""
Source: Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio (5/29/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"We believed then, and we believe now, that the Iraqis . . . had a program to develop nuclear weapons, but did not have nuclear weapons. That is what the United Kingdom's intelligence suggested as well. We still believe that."
Source: Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio (5/29/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community's deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention that weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"My personal view is we're going to find them, just as we found these two mobile laboratories."
Source: Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio (5/29/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
"We have found, in Iraq, biological weapons laboratories that look precisely like what Secretary Powell described in his February 5th report to the United Nations."
Source: Dr. Rice Previews the President's Trip to Europe and the Middle East, White House (5/28/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"QUESTION: Weapons of mass destruction, we are still searching. No conclusive evidence as of yet, I'm sure you've heard the criticism. Were, as perhaps Senator Byrd suggested, were we misled about the weapons of mass destruction? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Oh I don't believe so, I think the intelligence community provided the best intelligence available and that we will find additional substantiating evidence of that. Colin Powell if you may recall at the UN mentioned the existence of these mobile biological laboratories and two of those are now in our custody and they seem to look very much like precisely what Colin Powell said would exist."
Source: Secretary Interview with WNYW-TV, Fox News (5/27/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"So far, we have found the biological weapons vans that I spoke about when I presented the case to the United Nations on the 5th of February, and there is no doubt in our minds now that those vans were designed for only one purpose, and that was to make biological weapons."
Source: Interview with French Television 1, TF-1 (5/22/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The mobile vans that you may have been reading about, it is becoming clear that these vans can have no other purpose than the production of biological weapons."
Source: Press Conference at the French American Press Club, State Dept (5/22/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"The intelligence community has really looked hard at these vans, and we can find no other purpose for them. Although you can’t find actual germs on them, they have been cleaned and we don't know whether they have been used for that purpose or not, but they were certainly designed and contructed for that purpose. And we have taken our time on this one because we wanted to make sure we got it right. And the intelligence community, I think, is convinced now that that's the purpose they served."
Source: Remarks with Bahrain's Crown Prince Shaikh salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa After Meeting, State Dept (5/21/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"QUESTION: Do you think they will find any (WMDs)? SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, I am quite sure. And, in fact, we have found a couple of items of equipment, some mobile vans, so that with each passing day the evidence is clearer to us that they were used for biological weapons purposes."
Source: Interview with ZDF Morgenmagazin, ZDF German Television (5/16/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it claimed the purpose of the trailers was to produce biological weapons without disclosing that engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
Source: President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended, White House (5/1/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it suggested that Iraq was linked to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship.
Statement by President George W. Bush
"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the 'beginning of the end of America.' By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed."
Source: President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended, White House (5/1/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because by referencing the September 11 attacks in conjunction with discussion of the war on terror in Iraq, it left the impression that Iraq was connected to September 11. In fact, President Bush himself in September 2003 acknowledged that "We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is, is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat. Second, the kernel facilities, there are dozens of them, it is a large geographic area . . . I would also add that we saw from the air there were dozens of trucks that went into that facility after the existence of it became public in the press, and they moved things out. They dispersed them and took them away. So there may be nothing left. I don't know that. But it's way too soon to know. The exploration is just starting."
Source: This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC (3/30/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it professed certainty when the intelligence community provided only an "estimate." According to CIA Director George Tenet, "it is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof." In addition, the statement failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell
"We know they have chemical weapons."
Source: Interview on NPR with Juan Williams, NPR (3/25/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it professed certainty when the intelligence community provided only an "estimate." According to CIA Director George Tenet, "it is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof." In addition, the statement failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Statement by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"We have seen . . . intelligence over--over months, over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized . . . ."
Source: Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discusses the war in Iraq, CBS (3/23/2003).
Explanation: This statement was misleading because it professed certainty when the intelligence community provided only an "estimate." According to CIA Director George Tenet, "it is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof." In addition, the statement failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
April 11, 2003 | Page 7
PAUL D’AMATO sorts out the facts about the U.S. war from the Pentagon’s propaganda.
EVERY RULING class--including its bought-and-paid-for politicians and its media--is adept at turning the truth on its head, especially in times of war.
In the U.S. war on Iraq, the Bush administration is vigorously pushing the line that American armed forces are conducting a noble struggle to free a country of its hated tyrant. Iraqis who resist the invasion are depicted as "thugs," "terrorists," and so on.
In one joke, comedian Jay Leno captured the hypocrisy of this claim. "They’re calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom," he said. "They were going to call it Operation Iraqi Liberation, until they realized that spells ‘OIL.’"
It isn’t possible to say anything sensible about this war until its character is understood--until the excuses used to justify it are disentangled from the underlying, and usually unstated, reasons for it.
Let’s start with this statement: "A puppet regime imposed from the outside is unacceptable. The acquisition of territory by force is unacceptable." Ironically, these words were spoken by George Bush Sr. as the U.S. prepared to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991.
Bush failed to add an important exception: These things are perfectly acceptable if they are carried out by the U.S. government. The U.S. isn’t exactly a novice in the game of imposing puppet regimes by force--and disguising it all as "liberation."
A century ago, the U.S. made its debut as an imperialist power by seizing control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. In the name of "liberating" these colonies from Spanish control, U.S. armed forces turned them into American colonies.
As in all wars of conquest where a great power faces a militarily weaker but more determined resistance, Filipino nationalists used hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, including various ruses and deceptions, to throw their attackers off balance. U.S. forces routinely referred to Filipino resistance fighters as "devils" and "bandits" who were only supported by a minority of the population.
But the "whole population" supported rebel leader Aguinaldo, one reporter admitted, and "only those natives whose immediate self-interest requires it are friendly to us." When a reporter remarked on the bravery of the Filipinos, Brig. Gen. Lloyd Wheaton shouted: "Brave! Brave! Damn ’em, they won’t stand up to be shot!"
This reaction is familiar to anyone paying attention to what is being said about Iraqi fighters today. "Although soldiers of the United States armed forces are expected to abide by the law of war and, in fact, do so honorably, Iraqi soldiers are taught only that this is the law of ‘infidels,’" claims Louis Rene Beres, a professor at Purdue University, in the Chicago Tribune. Tell that to families of the dozens of people killed in a cluster bomb attack in the city of Hilla.
In every war, the two sides each portray their cause as righteous, fair and just. The killing of unarmed civilians is seen as a tragic necessity. Atrocities are unfortunate accidents. But "war crimes" are what the other side commits.
Anyone who can complain that soldiers fighting in civilian clothes is a "war crime" when Iraqis do it, but not when U.S. Special Forces do, is a hypocrite. Likewise, the idea that an Iraqi suicide bomber who blows himself up along with four U.S. soldiers is committing a war crime, while a pilot who drops a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb that dismembers 60 people in a Baghdad suburb is not, is playing with words.
Both are acts of war--an extremely one-sided war because U.S. power is far more lethal. Iraq is a fifth-rate military power whose economy and infrastructure has been devastated by 12 years of war and sanctions imposed by the U.S. Its economy has shrunk by 75 percent since the first Gulf War of 1991. In order to defend itself against the world’s largest military power, it must use unconventional means.
"It was astonishing to read of the surprise on the part of the military at the Iraqis’ methods," Jamie Fox wrote recently in the Guardian. "The commander of [Britain’s] Desert Rats said that their ‘terror tactics’ were ‘outside the rules of war,’ although anyone who has attended a war knows there aren’t any rules. Hue was the last pitched battle fought by the Americans during the 1968 Tet offensive. In that battle, 5,000 Viet Cong infiltrators climbed out of their civilian clothes in the city to reveal their North Vietnamese uniforms. Gen. Westmoreland complained that Tet ‘was characterized by treachery and deceitfulness’--the same outrageous methods Bush speaks about today."
In a war of conquest, everyone in the target country becomes the enemy. Thus, in Vietnam, American soldiers routinely burned down villages, murdered children and raped women. "The logic of the coalition seems to be this," writes author Vijay Prashad. "We are Civilized. We only fight a clean, rule-based war. They are not fighting by the rules. They are forcing us to break our rules. They have made us act like barbarians. We will act like barbarians."
The truth is that while most Iraqis hate the regime of Saddam Hussein, they hate their country being invaded and conquered even more. Patrick Nicholson of the British charity CAFOD, who returned recently from Umm Qasr, reported the words of a man--whose son Nicholson described as "skeletal"--expressing the anger and frustration that clearly runs throughout Iraq.
"You support us when the TV cameras and newspapers are here," the man said, "to show the world you like us. When they have gone you change. You have changed Saddam for another kind of imperialism."
Bogus Reasons For War On Iraq
By Michael Klare, Pacific News Service
Posted on January 30, 2003, Printed on December 22, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/15069/
In his State of the Union address and other speeches, President Bush has attempted to articulate the reasons for going to war with Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein. Stripped of rhetoric, these can be boiled down to three main objectives: (1) to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD); (2) to diminish the threat of international terrorism; and (3) to promote democracy in Iraq and surrounding areas.
To determine if these powerful motives are actually behind the rush to war, each must be examined in turn.
1) Eliminating WMD
The reason most often given by President Bush for going to war with Iraq is to reduce the risk of a WMD attack on the United States. Such an attack would be devastating, and vigorous action is appropriate to prevent it.
If the threat of WMD attack is, in fact, Bush's primary concern, then he would surely pay the greatest attention to the greatest threat of WMD usage against the United States, and deploy available U.S. resources -- troops, dollars and diplomacy -- accordingly. But this is not what the president is doing.
North Korea and Pakistan pose greater WMD threats to the United States than Iraq for several reasons. Each possesses a much bigger WMD arsenal. Pakistan has several dozen nuclear warheads along with missiles and planes capable of delivering them hundreds of miles away; it is also suspected of having chemical weapons. North Korea is thought to possess sufficient plutonium to produce one to two nuclear devices along with the capacity to manufacture several more; it also has a large chemical weapons stockpile and a formidable array of ballistic missiles.
Iraq, by contrast, possesses no nuclear weapons today and is thought to be several years away from producing any, even under the best of circumstances.
A policy aimed at protecting the United States from WMD attacks would identify Pakistan and North Korea as the leading perils, and put Iraq in a rather distant third place.
2) Combating Terrorism
The administration has argued at great length that a U.S. invasion and "regime change" in Iraq would mark the greatest success in the war against terrorism so far. Why this is so has never been made entirely clear. It is said that Saddam's hostility toward the United States somehow sustains and invigorates the terrorist threat to America. Saddam's elimination would thus greatly weaken international terrorism and its capacity to attack the United States.
There simply is no evidence that this is the case. If anything, the opposite is true. From what we know of al Qaeda and other such organizations, the objective of Islamic extremists is to overthrow any government in the Islamic world that does not adhere to a fundamentalist version of Islam. The Baathist regime in Iraq does not qualify; thus, under al Qaeda doctrine, it must be swept away, along with the equally deficient governments in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
It follows that a U.S. effort to oust Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with another secular government -- this one kept in place by American military power -- will not diminish the wrath of Islamic extremists, but rather fuel it.
3) The Promotion of Democracy
The ouster of Saddam Hussein, the administration claims, will allow the Iraqi people to establish a truly democratic government and serve as a beacon and inspiration for the spread of democracy throughout the Islamic world.
But there is little reason to believe that the administration is motivated by a desire to spread democracy in its rush to war with Iraq.
First of all, many of the top leaders of the current administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, happily embraced Hussein's dictatorship in the 1980s when Iraq was the enemy of our enemy (Iran), and thus considered our de facto friend. Under the so-called "tilt" toward Iraq, the Reagan-Bush administration decided to assist Iraq in its war against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88.
Under Reagan, Iraq was removed from the list of countries that support terrorism, thus permitting the provision of billions of dollars' worth of agricultural credits and other forms of assistance to Hussein. The bearer of this good news was none other than Rumsfeld, who traveled to Baghdad and met with Hussein in December 1983 as a special representative of President Reagan.
The Department of Defense provided Iraq with secret satellite data on Iranian military positions. This information was provided to Saddam even though U.S. leaders were informed by a senior State Department official on Nov. 1, 1983 that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against the Iranians "almost daily," and could use U.S. satellite data to pinpoint chemical weapons attacks on Iranian positions. Dick Cheney, who took over as Secretary of Defense in 1989, continued the practice of supplying Iraq with secret intelligence data.
Not once did Rumsfeld and Cheney speak out against Iraqi use of these weapons or suggest that the United States discontinue its support of the Hussein dictatorship during this period. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that our current leadership has a principled objection to dictatorial rule in Iraq.
Further, the United States has developed close ties with the post-Soviet dictatorships in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- all ruled by Stalinist dictators who once served the Soviet empire. And there certainly is nothing even remotely democratic about Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, two of America's other close allies in the region.
Other motives must be at work. Control of Iraq could give the United States de facto control over the Persian Gulf area and two-thirds of the world's oil -- an unrivaled prize in the historic human struggle for power and wealth.
Perhaps these ulterior motives do justify war on Iraq, even if the three stated reasons do not. If that is the case, the President should make this claim to the American public, and let us determine whether we want such a war.
Michael Klare (mklare@hampshire.edu) is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2001).
Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
Posted on June 27, 2003, Printed on December 22, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/16274/
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
-- George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every day. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," it lists the names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour of duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthial J. Smith, age 21, of Allendale, South Carolina.
The young, late O.J. Smith was almost certainly named after the legendary running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero was charged for a double-murder. Now his namesake has died in far-off Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19, "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field.
The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth.
What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody:
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... 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." -- President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."
LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -- President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly."
LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -- Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." -- CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.
FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.
LIE #6: "We have 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 are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"?
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." -- President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.
FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war.
LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks -- if they existed -- were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder.
LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." -- President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts -- including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week -- have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.
So, months after the war, we are once again where we started -- with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which O.J. Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty."
Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound more like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."
On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But -- I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.'"
And neither did we.
Record Shows Bush Shifting on Iraq War
President's Rationale for the Invasion Continues to Evolve
by Mark Sandalow
WASHINGTON - President Bush portrays his position on Iraq as steady and unwavering as he represents Sen. John Kerry's stance as ambiguous and vacillating.
"Mixed signals are the wrong signals,'' Bush said last week during a campaign stop in Bangor, Maine. "I will continue to lead with clarity, and when I say something, I'll mean what I say.''
Yet, heading into the first presidential debate Thursday, which will focus on foreign affairs, there is much in the public record to suggest that Bush's words on Iraq have evolved -- or, in the parlance his campaign often uses to describe Kerry, flip-flopped.
An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio addresses and responses to reporters' questions reveal a steady progression of language, mostly to reflect changing circumstances such as the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and the growing violence of Iraqi insurgents.
A war that was waged principally to overthrow a dictator who possessed "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised'' has evolved into a mission to rid Iraq of its "weapons-making capabilities'' and to offer democracy and freedom to its 25 million residents.
The president no longer expounds upon deposed Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's connections with al Qaeda, rarely mentions the rape and torture rooms or the illicit weapons factories that he once warned posed a direct threat to the United States.
In the fall of 2002, as Bush sought congressional support for the use of force, he described the vote as a sign of solidarity that would strengthen his ability to keep the peace. Today, his aides describe it unambiguously as a vote to go to war.
Whether such shifts constitute a reasonable evolution of language to reflect the progression of war, or an about-face to justify unmet expectations, is a subjective judgment tinged by partisan prejudice.
Yet a close look at the record makes it difficult to support Bush campaign chairman Ken Mehlman's description of the upcoming debate as a "square-off between resolve and optimism versus vacillation and defeatism.''
A careful reading of Bush's statements on Iraq reveals many instances of consistency, just as The Chronicle's examination of Kerry's words found consistency in the Democratic challenger's statements. Over and over, Bush stated that the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the way Americans -- including the commander in chief -- viewed the threat of terrorism and lowered the threshold of risk Americans were willing to accept.
"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take,'' Bush said in a well-received speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Sept 12, 2002.
Bush echoed those words earlier this month as he accepted his party's nomination for president a few miles away, at Madison Square Garden in New York:
"Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.''
Yet the more specific explanation of a mission that has cost more than 1, 000 American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives and well over $100 billion has undergone a transformation.
Prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bush focused on weapons of mass destruction and stated the U.S. goal in straightforward terms.
"Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in order to disarm, it would mean regime change,'' Bush said at a news conference two weeks before he took the nation to war.
"And our mission won't change,'' Bush continued. "Our mission is precisely what I just stated.''
Six weeks later, speaking to workers at an Army tank plant in Ohio, the goal seemed to expand.
"Our mission -- besides removing the regime that threatened us, besides ending a place where the terrorists could find a friend, besides getting rid of weapons of mass destruction -- our mission has been to bring humanitarian aid and restore basic services and put this country, Iraq, on the road to self- government.''
Last month, speaking to supporters at a campaign event in Wisconsin, Bush put it more plainly: "The goal in Iraq and Afghanistan is for there to be democratic and free countries who are allies in the war on terror. That's the goal.''
In the course of the campaign, such shifts have been characterized by Bush's opponents as lies.
"He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war,'' Kerry said during a speech at New York University last week in which he said Bush has offered 23 different rationales for going to war. "If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.''
The count comes from a study conducted by an honors thesis written by a University of Illinois student, which actually attributed 19 rationales -- none mutually exclusive -- to Bush and four others to members of his administration.
Most of the rationales were on the table from the beginning. What changed was the emphasis.
Bush voiced no doubt from the beginning that Hussein possessed chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons.
"Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction,'' Bush said in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
By the following year, after no such weapons had been discovered and evidence suggested that much of the intelligence was wrong, Bush had toned down such talk and begun to speak of the "threat'' of Hussein developing such weapons.
In his State of the Union address last January, Bush spoke of Hussein's "mass destruction-related program activities."
"Look, there is no doubt that Saddam Husein was a dangerous person,'' the president told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an interview several weeks before that speech. "And there's no doubt we had a body of evidence providing that. And there is no doubt that the president must act, after 9/11, to make America a more secure country.''
Sawyer asked the president about the distinction between the "hard fact that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons.''
"So what's the difference?'' Bush responded. "The possibility that he could acquire weapons, if he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger.''
"What would it take to convince you he didn't have weapons of mass destruction,'' Sawyer persisted.
"Saddam Hussein was a threat,'' Bush responded. "And the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.''
In the months since, Bush has changed his standard speech to reflect that failure to discover the weapons.
"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq,'' Bush said in July in Tennessee. "We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.''
There are a few instances where the president's words contradict developments or his previous statements.
On March 6, 2003, for example, Bush insisted during a prime-time news conference that he would offer a resolution before the United Nations calling for the use of force against Iraq even if other nations threatened to veto it.
"No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote,'' Bush said.
A few days later, after it became apparent that the measure would not only be vetoed but might fail to win a majority of the Security Council, the Bush administration dropped its demand for a vote.
The president also said last month on NBC's "Today Show'' that "I don't think you can win'' the war on terrorism, explaining instead that the nation could greatly minimize the likelihood of terrorist attacks. The comment came after months of asserting the United States was winning, and would ultimately triumph, in its war on terror. The statement appeared to be little more than an inelegant way of adding nuance to his explanation, and the president quickly retreated from the words the following day.
Some statements now look off-base after developments in Iraq, such as Bush's response in the first days of the war after learning that Iraqis may have captured some Americans.
"I do know that we expect them to be treated humanely, just like we'll treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely,'' Bush said, many months before American soldiers committed the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison.
President Bush on Iraq
Sept. 12, 2002 - Speech before the U.N. General Assembly
"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.''
Sept. 19, 2002 - Response to a reporter's question
"If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. ... This is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace. That's what this is all about.''
Oct. 7, 2002 - Speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cincinnati
"Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. ... Knowing these realities, American must not ignore the threat gathering against us. 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.''
March 6, 2003 - News conference
"Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in order to disarm, it would mean regime change.''
March 17, 2003 - Address to nation (two days before invasion)
"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. 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.''
May 1, 2003 - Aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. ... The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on."
Nov. 11, 2003 - Veterans Day address
"Our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is clear to our service members -- and clear to our enemies. Our men and women are fighting to secure the freedom of more than 50 million people who recently lived under two of the cruelest dictatorships on earth. Our men and women are fighting to help democracy and peace and justice rise in a troubled and violent region. Our men and women are fighting terrorist enemies thousands of miles away in the heart and center of their power, so that we do not face those enemies in the heart of America.''
Aug. 16, 2004 - Speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cincinnati
"Even though we did not find the stockpiles that we thought we would find, Saddam Hussein had the capability to make weapons of mass destruction, and he could have passed that capability on to our enemy, to the terrorists. It is not a risk after September the 11th that we could afford to take. Knowing what I know today, I would have taken the same action."
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