BS: Proof that Bush lied

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 02:27 PM

Extreme claims require extreme measures of evidence. The assertions of a fanatic don't pass the stink test, sorry.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 02:00 PM

Many people take other conspiracy theorists seriously. Sometimes they are right to do so, but...

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:56 PM

It's just another viewpoint and many people take her seriously. Whether you like her is of no import, can you prove her wrong?

Personaly I don't pretend to know the truth about whether or not B & B lied. As far as Blair is concerned his address to the congress was honest and good enough for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:44 PM

Umm, Crazyhorse - if you want to be taken seriously, it's probably not a very good idea to link to someone like Melanie Phillips!
She's not exactly the most rational of commentators. It's a bit like a Brit linking to a blog by someone like Rush Limbaugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:37 PM

In 2000, Saudi Arabia went on kingdom-wide alert after learning that Iraq had agreed to help al Qaeda attack U.S. and British interests on the peninsula. In 2001, satellite images show large numbers of al Qaeda terrorists displaced after the war in Afghanistan relocating to camps in northern Iraq financed, in part, by the Hussein regime. In 2002, a report from the National Security Agency in October reveals that Iraq agreed to provide safe haven, financing and weapons to al Qaeda members relocating in northern Iraq. In 2003, on February 14, the Philippine government ousted Hisham Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, for his involvement in al Qaeda-related terrorist activites. Andrea Domingo, head of Immigration for the Philippine government, told reporters that "studying the movements and activities" of Iraqi intelligence assets in the country, including radical Islamists, revealed an "established network" of terrorists headed by Hussein.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:30 PM

If that's really "the most inmportant fact in the report" it doesn't say much for the imoportance of the rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 12:56 PM

I'm sorry Dickey, but a single quote taken in isolation from a report means, er, what exactly?
Kendall has simply posed a question. The answer, like the subject, is tricky. Lying can mean the utterance of untruths, or can mean not uttering the truth, or can mean the slective uttering of the truth to imply something that is false.
The fact is, the US administration wanted to invade Iraq before 11/9/2001 and after that date made every attempt to paint Saddam as a danger to the West and a terrorist's friend. Those claims turn out to have been false, and some people actively involved in the intelligence community knew them at the time to be false.
I fear your delivery, showmanship or whatever you'd like to call it needs a bit of a polish if you are hoping to be able to go 'Ta-da!' and expose a killer fact that reduces your opponents to gibbering wrecks.
But don't beat yourself up about it. Not even the neo-cons in the White House can do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:45 AM

REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCECOMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTSON IRAQ

Ordered Reported on July 7,2004

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE UNITED STATES SENATE

108thCONGRESS PAT ROBERTS, Kansas, Chairman JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV,West Virginia, Vice Chairman, ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah MIKE DEWINE, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri TRENT LOTT, Mississippi OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia CARL LEVIN, Michigan DIANNE FEWSTEIN, California RON WYDEN, Oregon RICHARDJ. DURBW,Illinois EVAN BAYH, Indiana JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina BARBARA MIKULSKI, Maryland BILL FRIST, Tennessee, Ex Officio THOMAS A.DASCHLE, South Dakota, Ex Officio

"...the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium..."

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:31 AM

Going back over Dr Hans Blix's last report to the UN Security Council after the UNMOVIC Inspection Teams had left Iraq in March 2003, even then he stated that he could no categoric assurance that Iraq did not hold any WMD, or that programmes relating to WMD had been abandoned.

Which was precisely why he had wanted to carry on the inspections - and precisely why he was prematurely stopped from doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:20 AM

I meant the same "nobody" that Teribus was referring to.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:20 AM

...and the same nobody, even acting in good faith, messed up big time. Or is a destabilised Iraq and tens, hundreds of thousands of dead does not constitute "messing up big time"? That should be enough for any CEO to be kicked into touch. But not for leaders of nations, apparently - more's the pity.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:18 AM

1. The president (or his handler - Rumsfeld, Cheney, Blair...) decides what "the truth" needs to be.
2. He makes sure underlings in "intelligence" know what is wanted of them.
3. "Intelligence" tailors the evidence as necessary (selecting and rejecting material on the basis of whether or not it supports the predetermined desired outcome), pass it on to other foreign "intelligence", and then get feedback from them, based on that evidence.
4. "Intelligence" gathers together and presents to the president (or his handler) the tailored evidence, together with the evidence from foreign intelligence, which serves as confirmation.
5. Bombs away.

In computing terms it's a case of GIGO - garbage in, garbage out.

As George (our George, that is) said, whether the President was consciously lying or not isn't really that important. To tell a lie you have to say something that you know not to be true. Some people are incapable of that - for example, our Tony Blair is probably constitutionally incapable of believing that anything he says is false, so, in a sense, he is unable to lie. The same may well be the case for Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,MarkS
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:16 AM

http://www.kdp.pp.se/old/chemical.html

Hi all

Follow the above link for documentation of WMD in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:12 AM

"At the time, the security services provided the information that there were no WMDs"

Who? Where? And when? At the time the only information relating to what Iraq was thought to have was contained in the UNSCOM Report presented to the UN Security Council in January 1999.

Going back over Dr Hans Blix's last report to the UN Security Council after the UNMOVIC Inspection Teams had left Iraq in March 2003, even then he stated that he could no categoric assurance that Iraq did not hold any WMD, or that programmes relating to WMD had been abandoned.

What you are looking at is not the intelligence itself but the evaluation of that intelligence. Post-911, as far as the US was concerned it was always going to be the "worst case scenario" that would be advocated as the case for action.

Nobody lied, nobody acted in anything other than good faith, irrespective of how much some people on this forum would wish it otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Alba
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:04 AM

Spin it, twist it..re-write it to make it look 'better' if that is possible..to make it fit your Political view
That does not make it responsible Goverment however and the buck stops right at the man behind the desk marked Commander in Chief.
Where he supposedly got the information from is irrelevant. What he did with that information is HUGE. What has occured due to acting on HIS say so has resulted in disasterous consequences.
To some that think he may not have 'lied' well let's put it another way. It is pretty clear that George Bush Jnr. ignored the truth.
Impeach Him.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:02 AM

Hey, don't yell at Amos-

He knows what he believes, why bother him with the truth?

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:51 AM

Amos:

Do you believe it or are you just saying what you want others to believe?

Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying

* A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush's 16 words "well founded."
    * A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from "a number of intelligence reports," a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
    * Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush's 16 words a "lie", supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger .
    * Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:32 AM

What George Papavgeris said...

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Grab
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:26 AM

Him personally? None.

That the US and UK governments as a whole lied? Plenty. At the time, the security services provided the information that there were no WMDs, no risk of nuclear attack from Hussein, no link between Hussein and al-Qaeda, and there's masses of evidence that this information was provided. Whoever intervened to ensure that Bush presented a lie to the US (and ditto for the UK government) doesn't really matter - call it corporate responsibility.

If the US and UK governments were corporations and their cabinets were the boards of directors, every last one of them would be axed as a result of that kind of lie to the people who put them there to run things effectively.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:17 AM

Dickey:

I have told you what I have recorded historical data on.

Your puerile knee-jerk reactionary rhetoric is futile. Your boy is and was a liar.

Oh, and by the way he ALSO lied about the effort of the Hussein government to buy uranium from Niger.

I suggest, for example, the documented lists of intentional falsifications enumerated in Al Franken's "The Truth -- with jokes", which covers this territory nicely. Or either of the "Views of the Bush Administration" threads which have captured hundreds of instances, I expect (I didn't count them).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:09 AM

Anyway, what does it matter if he lied? The fact that his assertions were wrong (i.e. no WMDs, not collaboration between Saddam and Al Qaeda), for whatever reason, prove his and his administration's incompetence - and that's enough to see anybody off the job, right? Especially when the advocated course of action has resulted in the destabilisation of a nation and possibly a whole region, and the loss of so much life. This is a serious failure on the job, right? Not your usual "whoopsie-daisy, made a mistake there, folks, I'll be more careful next time"...

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,Dickey
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:09 AM

Amos:

Please make some statement that are not hollow please.

Tell us something you believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:43 AM

Bush and his mouthpieces repeatedly and deliberately asserted there were WMDs in Iraq and a significant threat of a nuclear strike by Saddam Hussein. In addition they repeatedly and deliberately conflated Iraq with the 9-11 attacks making it appear that Iraq had participated in those attacks, by multiple and intentional insinuation as well as a small number of direct false statements.

What proof are you looking for? Both these propositions were hollow.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:35 AM

Bush is afflicted with a sort of tunnel-vision that makes his world-view quite narrow. A person afflicted with tunnel-vision isn't lying if he simply doesn't see things that are outside his narrow visual range. However, other people who know about his affliction have a responsibility to point things out to him when he misses them. In Bush's case, there seems to be nobody performing that function. On the contrary, his advisors seem to suffer from the same disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:20 AM

Bush can always use the excuse that he is congenitally stupid, as was his father before him.
Blair does not have that excuse.

I was taught that the question could be answered by a simple general principle...

How do you know when a politician is lying?
His lips are moving!

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: GUEST,ozchick
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:57 AM

Then they both told John Howard..............

I like to call him Bonsai

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:57 AM

To prove that Bush (or anyone else, for that matter) lied about anything you'd have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that, knowing the truth, he deliberately said something else. Not "he reported what he was told" or "to the best of his knowledge" but "he knew this and said just the opposite."

More, he depends upon what information he is given. If a subordinate lies to the boss and provides false data to support the lie, is the boss guilty of lying? If the subordinate withholds relevant data and the boss acts upon the data he has, does the boss lie?

I'm not a big Bush supporter or fan, but I think that these distinctions are important. Bush doesn't do his own research and I think that he places too much trust in his advisors. I think that he doesn't demonstrate healthy skepticism. But then this is the case with politicians everywhere....

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: Scrump
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:56 AM

It was Blair that lied, and he told Bush who believed him. Then Bush told Blair back, and Blair believed it.

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:52 AM

The desire to believe it.

Subject: BS: Proof that Bush lied
From: kendall
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:35 AM

What proof do we have that Bush lied about WMDs?