Bush: ‘I Was A Dissenting Voice’ On Iraq War

[sabra]

Source: mediate

Former President George W. Bush considers himself “a dissenting voice” in the decision to go to war with Iraq.

In the first interview of the publicity tour for his new book, Decision Points, Bush told Matt Lauer that he didn’t want to use force.

“Not everybody thought you should go to war, though,” Lauer said. “There were dissenting voices.”

“I was a dissenting voice. I didn’t want to use force,” Bush said. “I mean force is the last option for a President. And I think it’s clear in the book that I gave diplomacy every chance to work. And I will also tell you the world’s better off without Saddam in power. And so are 25 million Iraqis.”

Bush went on to say that he still feels like going to war was the right decision. And as he wrote in the book, “No one was more sickened or angry than I was when we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction.”

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/bush-i-was-a-dissenting-voice-on-iraq-war/

---

on a related note:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2010-11-02-iraq-blast_N.htm

Blasts kill at least 76 across Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP) — Rapid-fire bombings and mortar strikes in mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad killed 76 people and wounded nearly 200 on Tuesday, calling into question the ability of Iraqi security forces to protect the capital.

The blasts — at least 13 separate attacks — came just two days after gunmen in Baghdad held a Christian congregation hostage in a siege that ended with 58 people dead. Tuesday morning, hundreds of Christians gathered at a downtown church to mourn their lost brethren.

"They murdered us today and on Sunday, they killed our brother, the Christians," said Hussein al-Saiedi, a 26-year-old resident of the Shiite slum of Sadr City where 21 people were killed in the most deadly incident of the day. He said he was talking to friends on a busy street, when the blast occurred.

"We were just standing on the street when we heard a loud noise, and then saw smoke and pieces of cars, falling from the sky," he said. People were fleeing the site in panic, frantically calling the names of their relatives and friends. "They (the government) say the situation is under control. Where is their control?"

[Sanity Claws]

1. He's delusional

He was selected by The Powers That Be precisely because he was itching to go to war against Iraq. He said so before the election.
Liar.

[blm]

13. he's NOT delusional...he's a LIAR trying to sound sympathetic...big difference.

.

[yurbud]

20. he's reading a script developed and focused grouped by publicists. He just needs to appear

reasonable to erase the well-earned label of worst, most-dangerous president in American history.

It might actually fool contemporary audiences, but the judgment of history will stand.

[saigon68]

52. "BRING EM ON" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

[saigon68]

53. The Chimp Clean shaven

[NYMdaveNYI]

56. Another reason I won't buy his bullshit memoir:

It's saturated with the same lies BushCo spewed before, during, and now after the Iraqi Occupation.

It's not like he's gonna come out in his memoir ( or in an interview with Matt Lauer) and say "yea, we lied about 9/11, Iraq war, Valerie plame, (et cetera)"

Same bullshit, just a few years later.

[wordpix]

57. maybe he did dissent but his oil puppetmaster profiteers including Cheney overrode him

It's possible since Cheney was the real pResident.

[yurbud]

59. that was one of the few good things in Oliver Stone's W

Was W saying to Cheney plaintively, "I am the president, you know," and Cheney not even bothering to reply.

[krispos42]

2. Iran is certainly better off without Saddam in power.

And where's Bin Laden?

[eppur_se_muova]

77. And how many people pointed that out AT THE TIME?

To Bush The Elder, Saddam Hussein was a counterweight to Iran. If Hussein wanted to engage in some belligerent bluster -- bluster he couldn't completely back up -- that was useful for keeping Iran in line. Bush The Lesser couldn't figure out it was all theater, and bombed his own junkyard dog for being too dangerous. More than a few people pointed out at the time that BTE had failed to teach BTL how the play was scripted.

[babylonsister]

3. Wow, he really is trying to rewrite history. nt

[MBS]

4. on W's revisionism. .

Does he really think people will believe this, even for a second? :rofl:

[AlbertCat]

33. Does he really think people will believe this, even for a second?

Well...of course he does. Look at what just happened in the elections. America has the stupidest, most credulous, childish, selfish population of any major power. Stick god in it, give 'em a gun and they'll believe anything!

[Blue_Tires]

51. people have surprisingly short memories...

[krispos42]

5. The world's better off without your sorry ass in power, too

Doesn't make it justifiable for you to be removed by foreign invasion.

[Enrique]

6. "i'm the dissenter" n?t

[No Elephants]

43. Exactly. He's already said he was" the decider." I took him at his word.

Well, not really. I was suspicious every time his lips moved. However, he doesn't get to have it both ways.


Besides, Constitution says he was POTUS and CIC.

[On the Road]

66. Well, It is Certainly Striking

that a president would feel the need to articulate that he is the one who makes the decisions. Maybe the lady doth protest too much.

[wtmusic]

7. Setting the stage for a war crimes defense nt

[flakey_foont]

8. oh, horseshit!

lying weasel murderer

[PearliePoo2]

9. oh really???

hey dimwit...your dissenting, criminal voice belongs behind bars for all time.
Torturing, war criminal that you are.

[ixion]

10. LOL@ Bush

Yeah, right, Chimpy. :eyes:

I notice he's still trying to use the "We tried diplomacy" ruse. It was a crock then, and it's a crock now.

[AllyCat]

11. You are, always were, and ever shall be...

...a LIAR

[Mad_Dem_X]

47. +1,000,000

[leveymg]

12. Dubya: The Dissenter Decider. Man of Action. Man of Peace. Dry Drunk. Schizophrenic.

Have another Lithium, George.

[hamsterjill]

14. Yeah, and I'm Santa Claus, George!

Have another drink and keep trying to convince yourself that you didn't put this country into two needless wars, you worthless piece of scum!

[Botany]

15. Houston Chronicle 1999 w bush, 'If I have a chance to invade Iraq .....

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/2877117.html


"He said, 'If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it.
I'm going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.' "

[Ian David]

16. Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere...

Bush Jokes about WMD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ

[lutefisk]

23. “No one was more sickened or angry than I was when we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction.”

He's the Pretzeldent. He always has and always will get a free pass.

He can be happy and sad about the same thing, if he feels like it.

[niceypoo]

17. My fucking lord

You were 'sickened' because you lied yourself into a war for nothing?

[pasto76]

18. I just posted this link to my facebook page, you all do the same

complete bullshit. I was sent to Iraq under his command. I expect when the CIC says "on my orders" that he means it. Ive always had anger and hostility about the amazingly fine soldiers and americans fathers, brothers, sisters that I had to put into body bags. This makes me absolutely rage filled. Im not kidding, Im scheduling an appointment with my mental health person today.

UN FUCKING BELIEVE ABLE

SGT PASTO

[snot]

19. And the R-owned media echo-chamber will spread that lie, too.

[beac]

21. Proof postive that Shrubby's little collection of scribblings belongs in the

FICTION section. :puke:

Go to hell, Georgie. Everyone knows you were itching to get your war on LONG before 9/11.

[Jefferson23]

22. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, the fucking LIAR...go to hell Bush..war criminal. n/t

[and-justice-for-all]

24. off the wagon for sure...nt

[Majikthise]

25. Totally believable

In the same way that Stalin was the dissenting voice on the invasion of Poland.

[AmandaMae]

26. ha. pathetic, does he think we all have amnesia?

[AlbertCat]

34. does he think we all have amnesia?

Well, look at the election that just happened....



Quick, before everyone forgets about it!

[kestrel91316]

27. Liar, liar, pants on fire. As usual.

[NBachers]

28. "And also, the Texas Rangers won the 2010 World Serees. My presence inspired them to victry."

[closeupready]

29. Oh! Uh-huh. I am so, so, so sure.

:eyes:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

30. Sounds like he's trying to pave the way for a potential run by Jeb

Make Cheney out to be the bad guy, and eat as many of their own as necessary to make the Bushies look better.

[closeupready]

31. And we've never been about 'stay the course.'

:eyes:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

32. up is down

[Uncle Joe]

35. Bush is a calculating, cold blooded, lying sack of shit.

Thanks for the thread sabra.

[glen123098]

36. Last time I checked, Bush was commander in chief at the time.

Hey Bushie, just because Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfelwitz say you have to do something, you dont have to do it. What a fucking terrible excuse.

[Sanity Claws]

38. During his term, he said he was the decision-maker

Fucking liar.

[jmm]

37. So that's why he thought the mission was accomplished so early.

He was really in denial that the whole war was even happening :crazy:

[deminks]

39. So, the CIC didn't want to go to war, but we went anyway? Who's head is gonna roll for that one?

Any ideas? Any?

Crickets.

That was the deal, huh? Impeachment off the table? You know, soldiers are still dying there. It's not to late to look back.

[bongbong]

40. It begs the question

Are chimpo (& Boner, BTW) drunk all the time because they have to lie all the time, or do they lie all the time because they have to stay drunk all the time?

Inquiring minds are curious!

[Joe Bacon]

41. Liar.

President Asshole strikes out again!

[sakabatou]

42. O RLY?

[Raster]

44. "Fuck it. We're taking Saddam out!"

Yeah, that's one dissenting voice you've got there. Liar. Cheat. Thief. Murderer. War criminal. You earned 'em fair 'n' square.

[Sodbuster]

45. Did they pass a Pot Law in Texas that nobody knows about?

Boy has been smokin' something if he expects people to believe that crap.
What a moran!!!

[ronnie624]

46. "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."

That doesn't sound like a dissenter.

But I don't think the person who makes the final decision can be accurately called a dissenter, anyway.

[No Elephants]

48. And Lauer responded, "Then which Democrat was to blame?"

[Doctor_J]

49. Why doesn't he stop lying? He can't get elected again

tell the truth for once in your life, loser.

[Roy Rolling]

50. History Redux

As long as he's rewriting history with fiction, why not go all the way and say we never invaded and it was private mercenaries that did all the damage? That would be closer to the truth than the reality.

[GETPLANING]

54. The War For Political Capital

Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade�.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker."


It is Bush's FATHER who was the dissenting voice, not George W.


"I know would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. "He said, 'No I haven't, and I won't, but Brent has.' Brent would not have talked to him without the old man's okaying it." Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush's administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm

[totodeinhere]

55. He's a liar. n/t

[UrbScotty]

58. Right, and the Lions are Super Bowl champions (nt)

[BarbaRosa]

60. Bullshit

[bitchkitty]

61. Fucking liar. n/t

[Arkana]

62. Even now he's lying.

[sofa king]

63. 25 million Iraqis minus the one million Iraqis Bush killed.

Just reading his ignorant prattle in print makes me thank the stars above that we have a real President now.

[JerseygirlCT]

64. What happened to the "deciderer"? nt

[coalition_unwilling]

65. Support our Oops! - n/t

[ProudDad]

67. The book from "Bizarro World"

[jmowreader]

68. I think he really was a dissenting voice on Iraq

The entire administration, except for Shrub, wanted a long, drawn-out ground war that would make Halliburton, DynCorp and other such entities twice as rich as they are already.

Bush didn't want that. He wanted to nuke the place.

[TheDebbieDee]

69. Oh, for phuck's sake...............

Did somebody sell him a memory-wiping gadget like the ones used in the Men in Black movies? Does he think we ALL just forgot about this $hit?

[somone]

70. Why wasn't he arrested??

[defendandprotect]

71. GOP re-writing history is important... what happened to "God told me to attack Iraq"---???

[Hassin Bin Sober]

72. I don't think “a dissenting voice” means what he thinks it does.

[Safetykitten]

73. He's a shrinks dream.

[Lasher]

74. Just an innocent bystander, you see.

They made me do it, or something. Besides, I wasn't wrong to do it. Or anything else.

[Heywood J]

75. That's all the revisionist history crack he smoked coming back to haunt him.

Next thing you know, he'll start scratching at his skin to get rid of the roaches.

[lunatica]

76. Yeah, sure. Whatever

[eppur_se_muova]

78. That word does not mean what he thinks it means.

Dissenting != delusional

[Zoeisright]

79. STFU, you murdering liar.

God, I hate repukes.

[xor]

80. So is this him admitting that he's an asshole and the invasion of Iraq was the wrong thing to do??

[dogfacedboy]

81. Bush is a lying piece of crap!

[Javaman]

82. trying hard to polish his* turd...

he* was against it before he* was for it.

right.

that asshole argument wore out its welcome quite some time ago.

jackass*