Bush caught telling a whopper. Again.

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

By now we've all heard of, read, or seen for ourselves that when Bush is backed into a corner, sometimes the truth does come out. I'm referring to his reply (finally) that Iraq had "nothing" to do with 9/11.

Quote:

August 21, 2006

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Video at:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-on-911/

Of course this admission of the truth hasn't stopped him or his administraton from still trying to tie Iraq, terror, and 9/11 together in the same breath still today. He lost his temper a little bit and the truth spilled forth before he could catch himself.

He says he doesn't listen to his critics, but we know that can't be 100% true. He's been a bit testy of late. It's hard work keeping the excuses and story lines straight. So, he slipped up again when he got impatient with a question.

This one's a biggie too. Very Happy

Quote:

Williams:
Do you see the argument that some on the left make that the war in Iraq has amounted to a colossal recruitment poster in the fundamentalist world?

Bush:
Uh, no, I don't see that at all. The fundamentalist world attacked the United States and killed 3000 people before I even thought about removing Sadaam Hussein from power. I just don't buy that argument. It is an argument that is not based upon fact.

I can't find a clip of it. It's probably on msnbc at Brian Williams' page. There are 7-8 segments of him and Bush in NO. But I don't use IE and WMP so I can't get them to play. But I saw that segment of Bush saying that to Williams. It was shown in a shortened clip on Countdown.

Bush looked Williams straight in the eye and lied like a dog.

Quote:

New terminology coming from the president, the war we did not start, this has Brian Williams‘ interview with Mr. Bush continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fundamentalist world attacked the United States and killed 3,000 people before I even thought about removing Saddam Hussein from power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14601135/

Quote:

FACT:
And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of (Former Treasury Secretary Paul) O'Neill's most startling revelations.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”

And that came up at this first meeting, says O’Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

FACT:
Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by GNN.tv
Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer
by Russ Baker

HOUSTON -- 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."

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work - and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war - has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush's unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters - well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush's ghostwriter after Bush's handlers concluded that the candidate's views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

Quote:

August 21, 2006

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Where is the lie?

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

I don't want to say something insensitive, but are you color blind? The lie is highlighted in blue. In case you can't see it, here it is in black and white.

The fundamentalist world attacked the United States and killed 3000 people before I even thought about removing Sadaam Hussein from power.

He just said he never considered attacking Iraq before 9/11. A blatant lie.

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5421

kenmabmcc

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

The scandal is Bush and he creates enough of them himself. He LIED. He intended to go after Saddam before he took the Oath of Office. And even if you want to parse words like "Thinking that Saddam needed to go and planning to remove him from power yourself are two COMPLETELY different things.", there's still the time line of what went on immediately after 9/11.

Sgt Schultz · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 7378 Location: St. Louis area

All you have to do is look at who were the prominent members of PNAC and then who was put into the administration when Bush took office. You can't tell me that Iraq wasn't in their thoughts. Those people made their thoughts well known before Bush even got elected.

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

Sgt Schultz · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 7378 Location: St. Louis area

Yes Saddam was a mass murderer but he was no where in the league of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or Idi Amin. There are reasons we went after Saddam but stopping him from murdering his own people was way down the list if you look back at the list of reasons why we went in.

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5421

mommabear, that still doesn't prove that he LIED (to use your emphasis). You "proved" (with "proof" that is HIGHLY suspect) that he started to plan AFTER 9/11. How is that a lie? That's EXACTLY what he said!

And that still doesn't change the FACT that lying is NOT an impeachable offense, no matter how much anyone hates Bush. The Democrats set the precedent that lying under oath isn't a "high crime or misdemeanor" so lying NOT under oath, which STILL has yet to be proved, isn't a crime either!

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5421

nlinecomputers

A direct threat? With what? Rusty SCUDs? So called terrorists? Strange most all the terrorists on 9-11 came out of Saudi Arabia. Most of the money for bombing in Israel has come out of Saudi Arabia. Where are the plans to invade Saudi Arabia?

The only thing S.H. was threat to was Kofi's pocketbook.

I have said from day one and Gary you have agreed with me on this forum that our primary goal in Iraq was to secure that country as a source of oil and then stop doing business with the Saudis. And the Saudis know this which is why they are funding increasing terrorist and guerrilla actions in Iraq.

Gary66 · Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 8353

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

Huapakechi · Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 487

Try this interpretation:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=plain_lies,_wa...ies_and

-- They said Bush attacked Iraq "unilaterally," when he built a coalition of over 30 nations, including Great Britain and tried hard to persuade the rest of Old Europe to join. To their discredit, they refused. A unilateralist wouldn't have bothered.

-- They deny Iraq is part of the war on terror, never mind that terrorists demonstrably disagree. Never mind that the Bush Doctrine clearly defines the enemy to include terrorist-sponsoring nations, like Saddam's Iraq.

-- They claim Bush asserted a connection between Saddam and 9/11, when he explicitly said otherwise. He said Saddam had close ties to terrorists, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which is undeniably true and which Democrats also persist in falsely denying. Indeed, Iraq was on Clinton's watch list of terrorist nations.

-- They say Bush called Iraq an "imminent threat," when he called it a "great and gathering threat." The Bush Doctrine called for attacking threatening nations before they could become an imminent threat, when it would be too late. But some anti-war Democrats, like Jay Rockefeller, did call Iraq an "imminent threat."

-- They say Bush's sole reason to attack Iraq was its WMD. In fact, David Horowitz notes there were 23 "whereas" clauses in the Iraq War resolution, only two of which mentioned WMD and 12 of which concerned Saddam's violations of U.N. resolutions.

-- They say they were duped into voting for the resolution by administration hype on WMD. But the intelligence Congress received in the National Intelligence Estimate was much less alarmist and more nuanced than the intelligence the president received in the Presidential Daily Briefings. But, hey, they had to give their anti-war base some excuse.

-- They say we had Osama surrounded in Tora Bora and let him go, outsourcing the job of capturing him to Afghan warlords so we could pursue our quixotic junket in Iraq. General Tommy Franks put the lie to all of this malicious nonsense.

-- On the hyped Wilson/Plame nonscandal -- don't get me started.

-- Most unforgivably, they've lied in painting President Bush as a liar on Iraqi WMD.

-- There's much more -- like their simultaneous condemnation and advocacy of preemptive strikes -- but no space left.

Next time you hear Democrats say they abhor lies "about war," remember a few of these gems.

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

Nice list.

But can you point out the part where it supports Bush's statement that he never considered getting Saddam until after 9/11? Obviously the war came after 9/11, but clearly that was an accident of history. Iraq was in Bush's plans well before that.

"The fundamentalist world attacked the United States and killed 3000 people before I even thought about removing Sadaam Hussein from power."

That is the topic.

Huapakechi · Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 487

Any proof, or do you merely "KNOW" with such certainty that you require no evidence?

**personal attack edited out by debora**

mommabear · Joined: Feb 20, 2003 Posts: 6317

There are supporting links at the top of the topic. You must have missed them.