"We Are Haunted By a War Begun Under False Pretences"

[laststeamtrain]

"We Are Haunted By a War Begun Under False Pretences"

Interview with Chuck Lewis, founder of the Centre for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (IPS) - Eight key players in the George W. Bush administration, including the president himself, made at least 935 false statements in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
These are some of the findings of a mammoth report just released by the Centre for Public Integrity, directed by founder Chuck Lewis.

Lewis asked his researchers to track every utterance by the top U.S. officials made from Sep. 11, 2001 through Sep. 11, 2003, regarding Iraq, "weapons of mass destruction", and the alleged link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. These officials include President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and former White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

What this report proves is remarkable, even though it is now a matter of public record that there were no WMD in Iraq and that the attacks against the U.S. in 2001 had no connection to Saddam Hussein.

Lewis concludes in a statement: "Clearly, this Iraq chronology calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were merely the unwitting victims of bad intelligence. More broadly, consider the timeless words of the late historian and Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin, in his classic 1961 work, "The Image": 'We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.' America went to war nearly five years ago after an orchestrated campaign of false statements by the nation's top officials, a war begun under the illusion of an imminent national security threat. We are haunted by a war begun, in other words, under false pretences."

Lewis spoke with IPS's Editor in Chief Miren Gutierrez about what he says is "an unprecedented, 380,000-word, online searchable, public and private Iraq war chronology, the public statements interlaced with the internal knowledge, discussions, doubts, and dissent known at the time. What they said publicly juxtaposed against what they knew internally."

IPS: You have tagged how many false statements were made by these top officials over the two years. How many exactly? Can you make any comparisons?

CL: We found 935 false statements... Bush made the most statements; McClellan the fewest. No one has ever done this for any other U.S. war, to my knowledge, a public and private chronology of what they said versus what they knew internally. There is no comparison to the past.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40887
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http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

[Atman]

1. A war begun by a president elected under false pretenses.

:(

.

[NanceGreggs]

3. Precisely. n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. Precisely

[JuniperLea]

2. Someone better act fast...

And get a new report out on Iran, before it's too late.

:cry:

[Demeter]

4. Say Condemned, Rather Than Haunted

and Nancy Pelosi is first after the actual criminals for complicity.

[gateley]

5. A question --

How do our representatives learn about reports like this? It's not an "official" report, the MSM may or may not cover it.

I sometimes wonder what they DON'T hear about because they're in their enclosed Washington World.

I'm concerned that much of this goes unnoticed by those who should be aware. Or if they are aware, they sure don't respond.

So, how do we make sure they know what they really, really need to know?

[tom_paine]

6. More proof positive of Bushie Crminal Malfeassance

Not that it mattrers. Imperial Amerika is like Putin's Russia and Commie China, a nation without laws for it's rulers, and only rules for it's subjects to be arbitrarily enforced base on Loyalty to the various BushPutinists of each totalitarian state.

[pingzing58]

12. How can this not be a 'misdemeanor' in "high crimes and misdemeanors" for impeachment.

[tom_paine]

13. Laws are only effective if people have the guts to enforce them

It's EASY to enforce the law against the weak and powerless. But that isn't law if it doesn't apply to all levels of society.

What we have in Imperial Amerika are RULES, not laws. And rules only apply to those powerless enough not to blow them off.

[indepat]

7. Wonder what percentage of the people of the world, excluding true-believers, now consider the

the bombing, invasion, and occupation to constitute war crimes?

[yurbud]

8. I'm still waiting for Democratic leaders to talk about the REAL reasons for the war

I can count the number of Dems who have on one hand, and none of them are in leadership positions in Congress.

[yurbud]

11. as long as they don't discuss this, they will seem to tacitly approve

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. how many false statements does it take to make people wake up?

the general public are unaware of Bush and cheney's lies.