BUSH LIED? NATCH!


The evidence for impeachment keeps pouring in. First there was the Downing Street minutes. Then there was the indictment of Scooter Libby in the ongoing Plame investigation.

Then, just the other day, there was this story about how the intelligence was actually right. On September 21, 2001 Bush was told by his intelligence officers that there was no link between Saddam and al Qaeda. But Bush insisted on making that case anyway. That's what we call a lie, class.

Now today comes a story that more than a year before Bush uttered the infamous "16 words"--"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa"--that the French government had a very different take on the issue. The French said that there was no proof of such a charge.

In fact, had George Bush been honest (which he wasn't) in his 2003 State of the Union speech, he might have said this instead of what he actually said:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. But the French have told us the exact opposite. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. They also tell us that there is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

And this is exactly what people mean when they say that Bush lied, or at the very least "manipulated intelligence" and didn't present the whole case--that the Bushies left out the info they were getting that didn't help make their case and was in fact contrary to their claims. The right-wingers and Bushistas will say that the intelligence was "flawed." Well, here we have two recent stories about pre-war intelligence that was presented to George Bush indicating that the intelligence wasn't flawed at all. The intelligence was accurate--much more accurate than the underhanded omissions of caveats,such as the ones contained in these stories, by Bush and others in the administration.

And of course there's another story debunking the Iraq-al Qaeda ties that recently surfaced. The New York Times reports that the "evidence" of such a link came to a large degree from a man who was tortured by us. The man recanted his testimony after the Iraq war began.

Recap

So, to recap how we know even more about how Bush lied and that despite what he and his cronies say, the intelligence was good (funny how Bush kept saying that in defense of the war, but he was referring to the bad intelligence):

1. 9/21/01 Bush told by intel officers that Iraq and al Qaeda had no ties.
2. In late 2001, the French government told Bush that the Niger/uranium story could not be proven.
3. Iraq/al Qaeda connection info came from a tortured Egyptian who recanted after the war started and said he made up the story to end his torture.

And this doesn't even include all the other ways we know, yes know, that Bush lied--yes, lied.