President Bush's cocktail of fear

The Pentagon released a report this week stating that there were no direct ties between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda. While this information isn’t entirely new, it does officially seal the case against the Bush Administration and further exposes the treachery that led us to war. In his famous Mission Accomplished speech President Bush reminded Americans on why we had to invade Iraq:

We have 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.

This argument -- that Iraq had WMD and “connections” to al-Qaeda -- was one Americans heard over and over in 2002, and because it met no opposition -- not from Democrats or the media -- it blazed the road to war. However, both these arguments were entirely fictional. Iraq was never an ally of al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime was not developing, stockpiling, or amassing weapons of mass destruction. This was all part of the Bush Administration’s cocktail of fear -- claim Iraq is developing poison gases, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons; that they are plotting with al-Qaeda; that time was against us; that a “mushroom cloud” may blossom over a U.S city -- and the American people drank it right up.

So while it surely served the Administration's purpose to portray Iraq as a nation arming for war and threatening the peace of the entire world, the reality was far different. At the conclusion of the first Gulf War the United Nations imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq that stifled its economy and impoverished its people. For instance, by 1999 the U.N. estimated that 1.7 million Iraqi civilians had died due to the sanctions, perhaps a half million were children. Iraqis lacked basic sanitation and access to medical care. UNICEF reported that 4500 children under the age of five were dying each month from hunger and disease. The sanctions ultimately were responsible for creating a famine in Iraq that probably killed millions. Such facts belie any suggestion that Iraq was a threat to the United States. How can a nation that cannot even feed its own people threaten the world's remaining super-power?

Economist Joseph Stiglitz has a new book about Iraq called the Three Trillion Dollar War. Of course, it would probably be more accurate to call it the Three Trillion Dollar Scam. The belief that a poor, starving and impoverished nation could threaten this country, or the belief that occupying Iraq would be in our national interests has to be one of the most costliest scams in history. So far, no one has been held accountable for this scam, which also shows that it is one of the greatest crimes in history.

Brit Hume: Fox's fact-free journalist

In response to the Center for the Public Integrity's report on the false statements made by President Bush and other top officials regarding Iraq's WMD in the two years following 9/11, Brit Hume, a Fox News anchor, had this to say:

A study by two self-described non-profit journalism organizations accuses President Bush and his advisers of 935 false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years following the 9-11 attacks. But a large number of those statements were drawn from repeated assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- a concept nearly universally accepted by most of the world's intelligence services at the time.

Bush apologists always defend President Bush by claiming "everyone thought Iraq had those weapons of mass destruction." However, this isn't correct, and it's based upon a misunderstanding of two separate intelligence claims.

The United Nations did recognize that there were still outstanding issues regarding unaccounted for WMD in Iraq. Lt. Gen Hussein Kamel, who defected from Iraq in August of 1995, told the CIA that he personally oversaw the destruction of Iraq's stockpile of weapons in the summer of 1991. However, the United Nations did not witness this destruction, so they could not verify it. So this became a controversy throughout the intelligence world: did Iraq really destroy its weapons in the summer of 1991, or did it conceal them for later use? No one really knew. As Hans Blix defined the problem, "One must not jump to the conclusion that they [WMD] exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded. If they exist, they should be presented for destruction. If they do not exist, credible evidence to that effect should be presented."

In 2002 was the Bush Administration claiming that Iraq did not destroy its weapons in the summer of 1991? No, they were making an entirely separate intelligence claim, namely, that in 2002 Iraq "renewed" production of biological and chemical weapons and began to actively seek a nuclear weapon. The subtitle of the October 2002 NIE was Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In other words, it had nothing to do with whether or not Iraq did destroy weapons back in 1991, but instead claimed that Iraq had begun new weapon programs in order to wage war and threaten the United States.

The question "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?" is imprecise. Does it mean: did Iraq not destroy its weapons back in 1991? Or does it mean: Did Iraq "renew" production of biological and chemical weapons in 2002?

The United Nations was trying to answer the first question, while the Bush Administration and the U.S. 2002 NIE were trying to answer the second. Hans Blix was agnostic on the first question, while the Bush Administration was certain on the second. So the specific intelligence claims made by the Bush Administration were not universally accepted.

For instance, on March 17th 2003 President Bush made the following claim:

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.

However, when the United Nations (UNMOVIC) left Iraq they reached a far different conclusion:

UN INSPECTORS FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF PROHIBITED WEAPONS PROGRAMMES
AS OF 18 MARCH WITHDRAWAL, HANS BLIX TELLS SECURITY COUNCIL

Says New Environment in Iraq, with Full Access and Cooperation,
Should Allow Establishment of Truth about ‘Unaccounted for’ Items

On March 18th UNMOVIC, the most sophisticated source of direct intelligence in Iraq, says there is no evidence of any WMD programs. While President Bush says there is "no doubt" Iraq continues to possess WMD.

Brit Hume is obviously not aware of the facts, is not interested in the facts, but only is interested in performing his duties as a shill for the Bush White House and the war in Iraq.