Ari Fleischer Blasts CPI Study: ‘They’re Only Attacking Republicans’ For Pre-War Iraq Lies

[CatWoman]

Yesterday on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes interrogated former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer about a new study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism that found the Bush administration issued 935 false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years following 9/11.

The report states that Fleischer made at least 109 false statements. Some examples from the database:

“Were Saddam Hussein able to transfer any of the weapons of mass destruction–the chemical, the biological weapons, or the nuclear weapons that he seeks–to these organizations, it would be too late for the United States to do anything.” <9/4/02>

“Unless Iraq proves that they destroyed them, where are they?” <1/21/03>

“We know that there are operatives of Al Qaeda operating inside Baghdad.” <2/12/03>

When confronted about his false statements, Fleischer responded that the study is “making the attack against everybody who said what the CIA had legitimately reported to two administrations. But they’re only attacking Republicans for it. … We were wrong. We’ve always said that. But the Democrats were wrong.”

Sean Hannity refused to accept Fleischer’s concession. “Ari, I don’t think you were wrong. I’m sure those weapons were moved.”

Fleischer’s attempts to fault the Democrats for Bush’s war of choice appear to be a reprise of Karl Rove’s efforts to shift blame.

In fact, the CPI study was not partisan in nature. It focused on the statements of the key administration officials who “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/24/fleischer-cpi-study/

[ixion]

1. Sean "Grand Buffoon" Hannity thinks Ari was right... well there's a shocker...

:rofl:

[BuyingThyme]

2. Somebody's got to put an end to this "the CIA got it wrong" meme.

Even Dems use it. It's bullshit.

[Gman]

3. Ari admits he lied

and Hannity says no he didn't.

[CatWoman]

5. LOL

That's it in a nutshell :rofl:

[Botany]

4. Bald Faced Lie

The Democrats did not have a W.H.I.G., White House Iraq Group or
an Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon whose only job was to
"cherry pick data and information" so as to "sell" a war with Iraq.

Andy Card famously remarked, when asked about the Administration’s push for the Iraq War starting in September 2002, “When you’re rolling out a new product onto the market, you don’t do it in August—you wait until September.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001095

[Arkansas Granny]

6. I just love it when they try to justify their lies by telling you how many

other people in the past thought that Saddam had WMD's. What they fail to mention is that the UN weapons inspectors had not been in the country to do inspections for several years. They also fail to inform people that the inspectors were prevented from completing the new inspections that Saddam had allowed because Bush ordered them to leave so he could start dropping bombs. The Bush administration could not afford for the truth about the WMD's to be known or they would have lost their justification for the invasion.