The 50 lies, exaggerations, distortions and half truths .......

[radfringe]

The 50 lies, exaggerations, distortions and half truths that took this country to war
25 January 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=484504


Whatever the outcome of the Hutton inquiry and the vote on top-up fees, the central charge this paper has consistently made against Tony Blair is that he took this country to war in Iraq on a false pretext. Raymond Whitaker and Glen Rangwala list 50 statements on which history will judge him and his US partners.


---snips specific to Bush ----

11 Saddam was a danger and the world is better off because we got rid of him.

Q: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still --

A: So what's the difference?

Q: Well --

A: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you.

President Bush, television interview, 16 December 2003

For Bush, the "possibility" of Iraq obtaining weapons in future was enough to have justified the war.


12 Already the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.

George Bush, State of the Union address, 20 January 2004

Weapons programmes are now WMD-related programme activities.


13 Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

George Bush, 7 October 2002

The White House ignored persistent evidence from US scientists and the UN nuclear agency that the tubes were useless for centrifuges.

[Dr Fate]

1. Every DUer needs to save this article- a great resource...

...thanks...

[jpak]

2. A keeper

thanks

[waterman]

3. Keeper - here, here!

[arcane1]

4. ooh, I'm gonna print this one out

and leave it in strategic places...

:toast:

[welshTerrier2]

5. Kay said no WMD's AND no WMD programs !!!

republicans may try to change the subject to talk about "programs" instead of WMD's but that's not true either !!

source: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4197408


David Kay, who stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said on Friday he does not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

"I don't think they existed," Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s," he said.