If no WMD found; will Bush be made out to be a liar?

[Boris Godunov]

People seem to be good at equivocating, but here's the simple fact:

Bush said, without a doubt, Saddam had WoMD.

He even said, without a doubt, we'd find them.

Ergo, if we find none, is Bush a liar?

Yes would seem to be the only possible answer to that question. Funny how many of the folks defending Bush to all ends in this regard went ape**** over someone else lying over a blowjob...

[el freako]

Well you see the person recieving the blowjob was in the wrong party.

If you're republican it's ok to lie, because being republican mean that you are inherantly more trustworthy.

[LoneWolf]

So each time you have been wrong about something, you have been lying?
Or is being wrong (assuming, hypothetically, that he was wrong) something different from lying?

[GePap]

Bush and the admin. said we had solid intelliegcne that showed Saddam had not only the possible ability of a small program, nor even a more significant program, but weaposn ready to use, that very same day: in tony's little report, it went as far as saying that Saddam could use his WMD's and ballistic missiles in under 1 hour, and all this solid evidence was the "proof" that when Iraqis said "we have NO WMD's", they were 'lying', cause we had all this solid evidence that they did.

Now, two things are possible: either the admin. knew this to be false and yet went ahead (this would certainly make Bush a liar), or, the intelligence we had was presented to the president as "proof" by those under him and by the intelligence agencies. That would mean Bush is not a liar, but that people under him either were outright lying, or more likely, manipulating the facts they had, sought out the worst possible scenrios from all they had in their hands, as opposed to the most likely scenerio. What that wouold mean is that our intelliegnce agencies were not doing their job, which is to provide the clearest, most correct picture they can, but instead were being used, (or were being the manipulators) to shape info into politically acceptable answers that could then be used to justify policy. To me, that is just as bad as outright lying, if not worse, because presidents get only 8 years top, but institutions live on.

[LoneWolf]

Well, there is another possibility. It is that the world is not perfect, and not all is knowable. It is that you look at the evidence at hand, and make a judgment, which may not turn out to be right. It is that political leaders are just people doing work, subject to the same rules of life as the rest of us.

But again, this assumes that President Bush was wrong, which is not at all clear.

[Seeker]

"It is that you look at the evidence at hand"

If only that was how Wolfowitz and company actually operated...

[DAVOUT]

In the best case, the President of the US did not lie, but he declared to the whole word facts which were not proven beyond any doubt, and made considerable decisions on that basis. This is not what we expect from the greatest power on Earth. And the human failure is a poor excuse when the life and death of people and nations is at stake.

[Sava]

Yeah... Clinton got blown and now we're getting screwed!

[Darius871]

Wait a sec, wasn't nearly every American war based on some sort of lie or at the very least a gross exaggeration? Why should this war be any different?

[Vandal-1]

If one follows the money,then it will lead to the cause of the war; in other wars weapons programs were uncovered during occuppation as were mass graves and other atrocities that were very concealed. Why not this one ?The search for said weapons was unquestionably a mission objective; thus if they existed they would have been found ; Lastly and most importantly,if they "the Buschies" would have found any solid evidence of /or actual weapons they would have bugled like Basset hounds but instead they are engaging the slippery slope of capabilty and motivation.
Just because I might have a gun and I don't like you means you have the right to shoot me?especially if you profit from it. right ?I think that using the U.S military to Steal!!!
is a crime against the American people as well as the Arab peoples and "ooops I was mistaken but since we're here let's get rich",just doesn't
morally satisfy.I believe that the best way to save face here is to make sure that the US or its companies don't profit, by making them pay the bill ,if they want to exploit that market.I at this time would also audit the books of
a feiw people in power over here to see what if any windfall profits are being made directly or indirectly by those responsible.If we don't want the Arab people to be a worse threat in the then we need to care more about what they see of us. It's my self appointed job to
distrust all who hunger for power and wealth.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Darius871
Wait a sec, wasn't nearly every American war based on some sort of lie or at the very least a gross exaggeration? Why should this war be any different?

Some people wish to bring truth, honor, and integrity into government. Others simply want to profit from it.

[uh Clem]

There's plenty more. From September 2002
("Agency disavows report on Iraq arms"):

 In a Sept. 7 news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush said: "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied — finally denied access [in 1998], a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon.

     "I don't know what more evidence we need," said the president...

Well, for starters, numbnuts, there's the fact that the report you're citing never existed:

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist.

"There's never been a report like that issued from this agency," Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday...

Later the White House tried to say that Bush had been referring to an IAEA report from 1991. Another lie: there was no such IAEA report from 1991.

This was all public knowledge long before the war. I'm sure you all remember the ultra-leftwing American newsmedia harping on it day after day after day.

Of course, part of being a Good Patriot is knowing when you are expected not to look too closely at something. And behaving accordingly.

[Sava]

I wonder if FoxNews reported that?

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Sava
Some people wish to bring truth, honor, and integrity into government.

I know, I was being sarcastic. I wish government could be like that, but only in our dreams. There's no way in hell we'll actually have honest politicians (any that sound honest are just exceptionally good liars), so the only thing we can do is limit the power of the government so that the liars don't do too much damage. Hence, conservatism.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Sava
I wonder if FoxNews reported that?

Why not? The Moonies did.