You most certainly have not answered my question. Your claim was that Bush lied about the Iranian nuclear weapons programme being active in the content of a speech he made on 17th October. Your basis was a newspaper report inferring that he (Bush) had been told that the Iranian programme had been halted in 2003 some time in August this year.

On the same day that newspaper article came out Bush was asked about this at a news conference and he said that what he had been told in August was that there was new intelligence on Iran currently under evaaluation but he not told what that intelligence was. President Bush even identified the person who informed him of this in August.

Now Bobert, you read the newspaper article and believed it because you wanted to. Have you read the NIE Report itself? I would tend to think that you haven't, you hate the truth to get in the way of a good lie. Well go and read the NIE Report, particularly the last line picked out in "BOLD" at the foot of page four:

"This estimate incorporates intelligence reporting available as of 31st October, 2007."

The report wasn't written in August, the intelligence had not been analysed or evaluated in August, therefore it is impossible for the President to have been appraised of the conclusions of a report in August when that report was not even written in draft form until mid-November. The President was briefed on the conclusions of the November NIE Report on 28th November 2007, the Report was made public on 4th December 2007.

On the AWOL thing Bobert the military tend to be fairly particular time keepers, if your myth were true, he would have been noted absent without leave and charged accordingly, he wasn't charged, the matter was never even subject to complaint. He was given an early honourable discharge, as many in the same situation were, so it would appear Bobert that he was never AWOL. Being AWOL is a bit like being pregnant, you either are or you're not, anyone charged with being AWOL is guilty from the outset, because it is a plain bald fact, excuses why you were not where you should have been can only be entered in mitigation. No charge no AWOL.

On the numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq caused by the invasion and subsequent insurgency Bobert, the ones who are doing the counting are actually counting deaths at one tenth the number of those who are only estimating the numbers who may have died by batch sampling.

Now I know that you are not the best at English comprehension and I know that you hate to read source material, preferring instead to jump at sound bytes that feed your prejudices. But if you are going to insist on repeating things that are patently untrue please don't be too surprised if you're called to prove them.