Revisionist-In-Chief
Center for American Progress: July 14th, 2004
In an attempt to re-write his own administration's history, President Bush yesterday insisted the war in Iraq was justified, even as evidence emerges that his two central justifications – WMD and an Iraq-al Qaeda link – were false. Bush insisted on a Saddam-al Qaeda link in his speech only 24 hours after the New York Times reported the 9/11 Commission is likely to produce a unanimous report that "largely dismisses White House theories both about a close working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda." It also comes as well-documented evidence shows the White House was warned its WMD case for war was weak, yet ignored intelligence to pursue a pre-determined ideological agenda.
THE CHANGING RATIONALE: Bush claimed the war was justified because Iraq had the "capability of producing weapons of mass murder." This echoed his 2004 State of the Union claim that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." Both statements are clear departures from the far more stark ("mushroom cloud") and definitive ("no doubt Saddam Hussein now has WMD") language the President used to scare Americans before the war.
ARE WE SAFER? Even while acknowledging the failure to find the WMD the administration said made Iraq an imminent threat, Bush claimed the war in Iraq made America safer. His statement stood in stark contrast to a report from the U.S. Army War College calling the Iraq war "unnecessary" and a "detour" that has diverted attention and resources from the threat posed by Al Qaeda. Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke was more blunt: he said the focus on Iraq "delivered to al Qaeda the greatest recruitment propaganda imaginable." A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies similarly concluded that "In counter-terrorism terms, the intervention has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers."
THE WHITE HOUSE'S REVISIONIST HISTORIAN: President Bush has chastised "revisionist historians" on Iraq, yet even now he continues to perpetuate myths. He claims he has a record of "working with friends and allies and international institutions." But only last year, he disparaged the United Nations and was unable to build a real international coalition to confront Iraq in an effective way. He also alienated allies by terminating negotiations on the Kyoto and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaties, brushing off key international AIDS conferences and working on behalf of the tobacco industry to undermine international efforts to reduce smoking. And unilateralism has its costs: the war will have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $150 billion by this fall.
REFUSING TO CONFRONT TERRORISTS: Bush touted his record "confront[ing] terrorists," yet offered no explanation why, in 2002, he transferred troops hunting Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and moved them to Iraq. With only 14,000 troops in Afghanistan (as opposed to almost 140,000 in Iraq), the administration last week acknowledged that bin Laden and his chief lieutenants continue to operate along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and "are directing al Qaeda effort to launch an attack in the United States sometime this year." Similarly, while Bush was bragging about his terrorism record, he offered no explanation as to why "the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out" top terrorist target Abu Musab Zarqawi, "but never pulled the trigger." After repeatedly refusing to hit Zarqawi, the White House "set its course for war with Iraq." As former Bush counterterrorism adviser Roger Cressey said, "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists." In all, at least 20 of the FBI's 22 most wanted terrorists are still at large.
CHENEY'S CONVENIENT CASE OF AMNESIA: Cheney accused Capitol Hill critics of the war with having "a convenient case of campaign amnesia." But as this American Progress backgrounder shows, it was top administration officials who displayed amnesia in assessing the threat of Iraq. Cheney also claimed those that voted for the war but now oppose it were "looking at the same information [the White House] did and coming to the same conclusion." But as the New Republic pointed out, both Congress and the public were deliberately misled by the White House about that information. In 2002, Congress was given an analysis of the Iraq threat "that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes" – a departure from previous, more objective CIA reports. Similarly, Knight-Ridder reports that the White House-approved public version of the "intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions."
posted by Richard at
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
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