935 Lies
For your reading displeasure…
“A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”
The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. The White House did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.”
You don’t say.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Holy Moly, I feel kind of ignorant. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “The Center for Public Integrity”! I just took a quick look at their site and bookmarked it for future reference.
Do you know if we have anything like this in Canada?
I am amazed that this man can rule a country in cahoots with so many other liars and get away with it! Not only that, he was elected twice!
The world is off its axis. Again.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I’d quit my job and spend every last cent to see in person all of them Hung…prefferably from the torch arm of the statue of liberty…:)
It’s ok to lie….just don’t get caught with the interns………they’ll want your HEAD!!!
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Stuff Happens by David Hare is an amazing play on this subject. It follows Cheney, Bush, Rice, Rumsfield, Blair, and Colin Powell from a meeting slightly before 9-11 through the early stages of the invasion. A lot of the play is written using actual public statements, but there is also an examination of what may have happened behind closed doors. Really Really worth reading! Not your typical play so even if any of you tend to dislike theater, this is still worth checking out.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
They will lie to their people and the world… talk about REALLY capitalizing on an issue… sound like it would’ve made a good addendum to our Foreign Affairs training manual on “Identifying lies, and the consequences of accepting them”…
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
“We don’t lie… we tell unfinished truths.”
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
:)
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
what ever happened to three strikes and you’re out?
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
[quote comment="39748"]what ever happened to three strikes and you’re out?[/quote]
when your umpire’s corrupt…
January 24th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Yeah this is just the dose of bs that makes me want to meet all of the political figures listed in the article. The actual number of lies, 935, does not shock or stir me one bit- even if I should remain skeptical about everything I read. I’m really not surprised- it almost scares me.
say it with me, “C-O-R-R-U-P-T.”
January 24th, 2008 at 1:10 am
in terms of the over/under… surely that is the under…
January 24th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Woah
I guess any excuse to kick some ass was a good one for them at the time.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:02 am
If that doesn’t qualify as impeachable, I don’t know what would.
It’s really too bad that the ideals of truth and justice are so politically inconvenient.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:05 am
They have really gotten themselves into quite a mess. They’re spending billions of dollars that they don’t have on this war they’re fighting and they continue to dig themselves deeper into a hole. An example - the Canadian dollar - it’s not stronger because Canada is doing so well, it’s stronger because the states are doing so poorly. In my opinion it’s just going to get worse and it’s all been based on a lie. Weapons of “mass destruction”…sure, and they were also starting a space program?
January 24th, 2008 at 5:10 am
i don’t remember one of his campaign promises being that he would try to lie his way through his terms as much as he can. at least he accomplished something
January 24th, 2008 at 5:20 am
I’m sure those 935 statements were just taken out of context.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:54 am
While I agree that all this is disgusting… what does it even matter????
I know that sounds bad but really, what does it matter? Everyone has known for years now that the whole thing has been based on lies and nothing happens. This evidence will do nothing and all the crap they have been getting away with they will continue to get away with.
I certainly should matter, and I wish to fuck that it did and people would act or do…something… anything. But it’s just words in the end and nothing.. nothing will happen as a result of any of this.
I’m optomistic this morning eh?
January 24th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Here is a good cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ sung by Pearl Jam…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svHentyELXo
Seems applicable to this post.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Is 935 false statements somehow linked to a some exponential mathematical equation that could somehow explain the 800 000 Iraqi and Afghani deaths?
Disgusting.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:57 am
I suppose it’s nice to have statistics to back up what we qualitatively have known to be true for some time.
(Imagine the poor intern who had to go through all those speeches and count them up. “Umm, excuse me, but could I go back to fetching coffee and making copies again?”)
January 24th, 2008 at 6:25 am
[quote comment="39761"]While I agree that all this is disgusting… what does it even matter????
I know that sounds bad but really, what does it matter? Everyone has known for years now that the whole thing has been based on lies and nothing happens. This evidence will do nothing and all the crap they have been getting away with they will continue to get away with.
I certainly should matter, and I wish to fuck that it did and people would act or do…something… anything. But it’s just words in the end and nothing.. nothing will happen as a result of any of this.
I’m optomistic this morning eh?[/quote]
Aside from optimistic also realistic– you’re exactly right this isn’t news to anyone nor is it a shock but what? What will happen.. ? Anyone who could get in to office and get his people out will just have the election rigged against them until the Bush administration gets someone they can manipulate or whom already agrees with the current status.
It infuriates me… all the people who have died, the ones who psychologically will never be the same again as the result of kidnappings or torture… and for… what? A world wide pissing contest.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Most wars seem to be started with lies. I wonder when people will catch on to that.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
why don’t people like this get impeached? it boggles the mind!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I just get a kick out of the fact that somebody actually counted the lies and tallied them up.
I think the states is going to rapidly see a huge change within their country over the next few years. I already know of quite a few americans moving into Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, to farm, or otherwise because of this impending recession, due to 935 lies that were counted to start a war, and the thousand more to invade other countries.
Halifax Redemption - Agreed.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:07 am
wow…. how utterly enlightening…. the sheep of this country couldn’t see this before? every time they were losing in midterm polls during the elections… during the re-election campaigns… every time something with the economy, healthcare system, and education system all being piles of crap came up…. every time the environment was sold away to their cronies… they would make everyone crazy and paranoid that al-qaeda on mars was coming in their spacef*ckingships to kill us all and that the homosexuals would be the only ones left standing if you didn’t give up all your rights and let them jackboot their way around the world… pathetic…
January 24th, 2008 at 8:19 am
But the lies were never believable. The BS was clear from day one and the “evidence” was always thin and shabby. Whatever happened to not blindly following your leaders? The people hold just as much blame and responsibility, if not more. The re-election debacle truly placed the responsibility squarely on the people; at that point everyone surely knew the truth. I just cannot wait for the rest of this year to be over and done; looking forward to voting Feb. 12 in my Dem. primaries.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Politicians…lie?!?!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:36 am
It’s not lying. We just haven’t corrected our memories enough….
Doublethink, comrades. Doublethink.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
No, not lying… it’s keeping us from truths that would only hurt us and leave us frightened and uncertain.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:48 am
The White House response, if there is one, will be predictable. That is, that they did not lie, but that they made mistaken statements based up inaccurate intelligence they were given.
While it is interesting to see the numbers quantified, it isn’t really new news. I think in order for anything to come of this, you have to prove, beyond reasonable dispute, that at the time the statements were made they knew they were false.
As long as they have plausible deniability they won’t ever be held accountable.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:21 am
[quote comment="39770"]why don’t people like this get impeached? it boggles the mind![/quote]
We only impeach for important stuff… like lying about getting a hummer in the hallway to the Oval Office. Lying to initiate a war is not worth an impeachment.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:56 am
It certainly won’t be like the Hollywood movies where the bad guys are led away in handcuffs…these crooks and liars will be kicking up their feet by the fireplace enjoying their retirement. It just makes me sick.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
They are telling us exactly what we already know (Bush and his admin are a bunch of war mongering liars) and not a f-ing thing will happen. Say what you will about the Canadian government but these bastards would have been gone a long time ago. In a country as opionated as the US why the hell is no one doing anything?!?! Cowards? Lazy? Or do they simply agree with how their country is run. I know Americans frequent this site, can any of you help answer this question?
January 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
And here we are, 935 lies and counting.
Although everyone here is more than aware of Bush’s idiocy, and the practical idiocy of politicians and the American governmental system, there are still people who support Bush open-heartedly.
There are still people dying for lies today. It shouldn’t be a surprise that there are people dying in their homelands for even more lies that go unaccounted everyday.
We give our politicians respect, and they hold great authority, but sometimes enough is enough. The corruption with power that happens is just too unfathomable. One lie is too much.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Reading stuff like that, I’m actually discouraged by my lack of shock towards the truth of it. And one should not have to live in a world where they actually miss the shock they should feel for a government’s corrupt and just plain wrong manipulation of its people and policies.
At least I still feel that emotion they call disgust.
Here I am, reading this and pleased with myself for still being appalled with it all.
And so it has occurred to me, we can only save ourselves from this mess and North of the border, voting season is a little further away. When my time comes, I’ll be doing my part to discharge Bush the puppet’s own Canadian marionette.
Damn it, now I’m just fuming over people who don’t vote.
The best way to disagree with those in power is to strip them of it, bare.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Well, at least it’s official now.
And yet, Kucinich was accused of making false accusations when he called for Bush to be impeached.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[quote comment="39743"]“We don’t lie… we tell unfinished truths.”[/quote]
after reading that post i needed a smile :) so true so true dale
January 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
C’mon America - wake up!
It’s all really disturbing. Over one trillion dollars has been spent on this war, supposedly to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq. It’s all gone up in smoke.
Just imagine if all that money was spent in America. Think of how much good could have been done to the American infrastructure (New Orleans for example)and how the ecomomy would have prospered with all that money “bouncing” around within the US.
Instead there is hopelessness and failure in Iraq and a U.S. economy in tatters.
My American neigbours, you should be a lot angrier than you are… Send an example to future politicians. Get pissed off and do something. Demand accountability.
Apathy could be your undoing.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
[quote comment="39768"]Most wars seem to be started with lies. I wonder when people will catch on to that.[/quote]
When people stop being dumb, and start asking “Where is the money” anytime a politician opens his mouth.
Also: “Bush led with 259 false statements“ Way to go Dubya! We always knew you`d finally come in first for something.