the new york times this morning is wondering whether the president lied. in the print edition, the headline for the continuation of the article is "is exaggerating the same as lying?" the answer is, of course not. but the president's critics are not saying he's exaggerating. they say he's lying.
the times article only discusses bush's pre-war statements about weapons of mass destruction and his mis-statements about who gets the benefits of the recently passed tax cut. notably absent is any reference to several other reports suggesting the administration's deception, most recently the report earlier this week that the white house removed information about global warming from an e.p.a. report, or earlier reports that cheney's visits to the c.i.a. may have influenced the agency's analysis of iraq. the latter two involve actions of the bush administration in general, whereas this sunday's times article focuses only on the president as an individual. by ignoring the administration's overall conduct. this allows the times article to conclude that the president did not "lie" because "there is no evidence the president did not believe what he was saying." in other words, it's not a lie so long as the administration deceives not only the public, but also the president.
actually, while others may disagree, i think the focus on the missing weapons of mass destruction is misguided. i'm happy that the bush administrations post-911 honeymoon may finally be ending and the press is finally bothering to question the veracity of what they say, albeit 3 to 4 months late. but putting that aside, we all know the bush administration did not sell the war on the american public with the theory that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. they sold the war by conflating iraq with al-qaeda and saddam hussein with osama bin laden. that's where the real lie was.
earlier this year several polls indicated that a large number of americans believed and probably still believe, erroneously, that some of the 9-11 hijackers were iraqi, or that saddam had been the mastermind of the 9-11 plot. the administration never made such claims, but they did everything short of saying so to create that impression. they floated all kinds of theories to create a saddam-osama connection. for example, the administration claimed mohammed atta met an iraqi agent in prague just prior to september 11th, even after report that was thoroughly debunked when both the f.b.i. determined that atta was not in prague at the date of the meeting and czech intelligence announced that such a meeting never took place.
the bush administration also argued that intelligence reports that abu musab zarqawi, an al-qaeda associate, was present in baghdad somehow proved that saddam was cooperating with al-qaeda. the administration continued to push this theory even after c.i.a. director george tenet testified that there was no evidence that zarqawi was "under control of" the iraqi government. indeed, if the mere presence of an al-qaeda agent in a country equals that country's alliance with al-qaeda, then iraq should have been the least of our worries. al-qaeda cells have existed in britain, france, germany, pakistan, indonesia, canada, and yes, even the united states. by the same logic george bush would be in cahoots with al-qaeda. as far as I am aware, no major american news source pointed out this simple flaw in the administration's logic.
the administration also claimed that saddam and al-qaeda were linked because ansar al-islam, a militant kurdish group, was based in northern iraq and was possibly linked to al-qaeda. never mind that the kurdish region where the small patch of territory that ansar controlled was located was outside of the control of the hussein regime, there was no evidence of any connection between saddam's government and the group, and that ansar itself was hostile to saddam hussein and publicly denied any connection to saddam's government existed.
finally, when colin powell testified before congress to state the administration's reason to justify a war on iraq, he cited a recording by bin laden as proof that al-qaeda and iraq were allies. the recording itself, however, referred to saddam's regime as "the hypocrites of iraq" and (referencing that the secular socialist ideology of the baath party) referenced al-qaeda's "belief in the infidelity of socialists." in other words, while the recording did seek to encourage bin laden's followers to hold their nose and fight the u.s. in iraq, it did not establish any close relation between saddam's government and al-qaeda. indeed, it suggested precisely the opposite of what the administration claimed it says. isn't that a lie?
on top of all of that, the administration never mentioned any of the evidence suggesting that iraq and al-qaeda were not cooperating with each other. for example: the fact that the baath party is secular and openly hostile to political islamic movements like al-qaeda; bin laden's repeated public denunciations of secular arab regimes, including the iraqi baath party; the fact that any al-qaeda adherent would have been arrested in saddam's iraq for broadcasting any bin laden speech under iraq's tough policies against political islam; and the fact that iraq refused to recognize the taliban as the government in afghanistan ("allies" in the war against terror saudi arabia, the u.a.e., and pakistan had no such qualms). on the other hand, the major media outlets in the u.s didn't bother to point out these problems with the bush administration's theories either.
weapons of mass destruction was the legal hook the administration used in its attempt to convince the nations of the world and the u.n. that an attack on iraq was justified. it was the al-qaeda connection that, in my opinion, explains the war's support among the american public. while bush spoke often about iraq's dangerous weapons program in the days leading up to the war, he always found a way to work in a reference to al-qaeda, the world trade center, or 9-11. even now, american troops in iraq cite the al-qaeda connection as their motivation for being there this is the result of the misinformation campaign we should be paying attention to.
ironically, post-war iraq is turning into what bush claimed it was under saddam. bush argued that saddam allowed terrorists to operate freely in iraq and there was a danger that iraq would allow terrorists to get weapons of mass destruction. in fact, the baathist regime did not tolerate any such organizations that could pose a threat to saddam's rule, and thus the miliary wings of terrorists organizations could not operate freely in areas in saddam's iraq. similarly, iraq jealously guarded its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities, making it unlikely that any of those weapons (if they existed) could fall into the hands of terrorists). american occupying forces have been less zealous about guarding anything other than oil facilities in iraq. if anything, the u.s. has given al-qaeda the opportunity to take root in iraq, an opportunity that it did not have when saddam was in charge. why isn't anyone demanding an inquiry into that?
