Big whoppers
President Bush sold the Iraq war with lies
-- and Americans are paying with their
lives. An excerpt from "Dude, Where's My
Country?"
By Michael Moore, Oct. 22, 2003
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/10/22/moore_excerpt/print.html
What is the worst lie a president can tell?
"I did not have sexual relations with that
woman, Miss Lewinsky."
Or ...
"He has weapons of mass destruction -- the
world's deadliest weapons -- which pose a
direct threat to the United States, our
citizens and our friends and allies."
One of those lies got a president
impeached. The other lie not only got the
liar who told it the war he wanted, but
also resulted in huge business deals for
his friends and virtually assures him a
landslide victory in the next election.
Sure, we've been lied to before. Lots of
lies: big lies, little lies, lies that
brought us down in the eyes of the world.
"I am not a crook" was a lie, and it sent
Richard Nixon packing. "Read my lips: No
new taxes" wasn't so much a lie as a broken
promise, but it nonetheless cost the first
Bush his presidency. "Ketchup is a
vegetable" was technically not a lie, but
it was a good example of the Reagan
administration's whacked view of the world.
As the lies that led us into the Iraq War
started to unravel and be exposed, the Bush
administration went into survival mode with
their only defensive maneuver: Keep
repeating the lie over and over and over
again until the American people are so worn
down they'll scream "uncle!" and start
believing it.
But nothing can hide this indisputable
fact: There is no worse lie than one told
to scare mothers and fathers enough to send
their children off to fight a war that did
not need to be fought because there never
was any real threat at all. To falsely tell
a nation's citizens that their lives are in
jeopardy just so you can settle your own
personal score ("He tried to kill my
daddy!") or to make your rich friends even
richer, well, in a more just world, there
would be a special prison cell in Joliet
reserved for that type of liar.
George W. Bush has turned the White House
into the Home of the Whopper, telling one
lie after another, all in pursuit of
getting his dirty little war. It worked.
His whoppers are available in all shapes
and sizes and configurations. Allow me to
present to you the tasty menu the
Whopper-in-Chief served up special just for
you. I'll call them "The Iraq War Combo Meals":
No. 1 The Original Whopper: "Iraq has
nuclear weapons!"
There is no greater way to scare a
population than to say there is a madman on
the loose and he has (or is building)
nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons he intends
to use on you.
George W. Bush laid the groundwork for
scaring us silly early on. In his speech to
the United Nations in September 2002, Bush
said with a straight face that "Saddam
Hussein has defied all these efforts and
continues to develop weapons of mass
destruction. The first time we may be
completely certain he has a nuclear weapons
[sic] is when, God forbid, he uses one."
Soon after, on October 7, Bush told a crowd
in Cincinnati, "If the Iraqi regime is able
to produce, buy or steal an amount of
highly enriched uranium a little larger
than a single softball, it could have a
nuclear weapon in less than a year. ...
Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot
wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun
-- that could come in the form of a
mushroom cloud." How to sway the American
public from its initial reluctance to go to
war with Iraq? Just say "mushroom cloud"
and -- BOOM! -- watch those poll numbers
turn around!
In addition to uranium from Africa, Bush
said the Iraqis had "attempted to purchase
high-strength aluminum tubes and other
equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which
are used to enrich uranium for nuclear
weapons."
Frightening stuff. Imagine how much more
frightening if it was actually true. Joseph
Wilson, a senior American diplomat with
more than 20 years of experience, including
positions in Africa and Iraq, was sent to
Niger in 2002 on a CIA-directed mission to
investigate the British claims that Iraq
had tried to buy "yellowcake uranium" from
Niger. He concluded that the allegations
were false.
The White House ignored Wilson's report and
instead kept the hoax alive. When the
administration persisted with the
fabricated story, one official, according
to the New York Times, said, "People winced
and thought, why are you repeating this
trash?" The documents from Niger were so
badly faked that the Niger foreign minister
who "signed" one of them was no longer in
the government -- in fact, he had been,
unbeknownst to the British or American
liars who made up the story, out of office
for more than a decade.
The aluminum tubes "discovery" also turned
out to be a fictitious threat. On January
27, 2003 -- the day before Bush's State of
the Union address -- the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed
El-Baradei, told the U.N. Security Council
that two months of inspections in Iraq had
produced no evidence of prohibited
activities at former Iraqi nuclear sites.
In addition, El- Baradei said, the aluminum
tubes "unless modified, would not be
suitable for manufacturing centrifuges."
According to reports in the Washington
Post, Newsweek, and other publications, the
assertion that the tubes could be used for
nuclear weapons production had already been
questioned by U.S. and British intelligence
officials. U.N. inspectors said they had
found proof that Iraq planned to use the
tubes to build small rockets, not nuclear
weapons. And the Iraqis were not trying to
buy the equipment in secret -- their
purchase order was accessible on the
Internet. But Mr. Bush didn't let facts
stand in the way of his tough-talking State
of the Union address to almost 62 million
viewers on January 28, 2003: "... Saddam
Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa," he
stated. "Imagine those nineteen hijackers
with other weapons and other plans -- this
time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take
one vial, one canister, one crate slipped
into this country to bring a day of horror
like none we have ever known. We will do
everything in our power to make sure that
that day never comes."
On March 16, Co-President ***** Cheney
appeared on "Meet the Press" and told the
nation that Hussein has "been absolutely
devoted to trying to acquire nuclear
weapons. And we believe he has, in fact,
reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Three days later, we went to war.
No. 2 Whopper With Cheese: "Iraq has
chemical and biological weapons!"
In his October 7, 2002, address from
Cincinnati, George W. Bush offered up this
freshly cooked whopper: "Some ask how
urgent this danger is to America and the
world. The danger is already significant,
and it only grows worse with time. If we
know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons
today -- and we do -- does it make any
sense for the world to wait to confront him
as he grows even stronger and develops even
more dangerous weapons?" Then, just a few
months later, Bush added the cheese: "We
have sources that tell us that Saddam
Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field
commanders to use chemical weapons -- the
very weapons the dictator tells us he does
not have."
Who wouldn't want to bomb that *****
Saddam after hearing that? Then Secretary
of State Colin Powell went even further --
he said that the Iraqis weren't just
concocting chemical weapons, they were
doing it on wheels!
"One of the most worrisome things that
emerges from the thick intelligence file we
have on Iraq's biological weapons is the
existence of mobile production facilities
used to make biological agents," Powell
told the United Nations. "We know that Iraq
has at least seven of these mobile,
biological agent factories." He went on
with such specifics that ... it had to be
true! And on Wednesday, the official
responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons
threat for Powell claimed the Secretary of
State misinformed Americans during his U.N.
speech.
But after invading Iraq, the U.S. Army
couldn't find a single one of these "mobile
labs." After all, with so many palm trees
to hide them under, who could blame our
army for not uncovering them? We couldn't
find any of the chemical or biological
weapons either, even though on March 30,
2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
had said on ABC's "This Week," "We know
where they are. They're in the area around
Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south,
and north somewhat." Oh, okay, that's
clear! Now we'll find them! Thank you,
Madhatter!
Finally, on June 5, 2003, George W. Bush
declared: "We recently found two mobile
biological weapons facilities, which were
capable of producing biological agents.
This is the man who spent decades hiding
tools of mass murder. He knew the
inspectors were looking for them."
That whopper lasted about a day. An
official British investigation into the
"two trailers" found in northern Iraq
concluded "they are not mobile germ warfare
labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and
George Bush, but were for the production of
hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the
Iraqis have continued to insist." That was
it. Tanks to fill up balloons! Weapons of
mass balloonery!
No. 3 Whopper With Bacon: "Iraq has ties to
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda!"
Just hours after the attacks on 9/11, U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had
already figured out who was responsible, or
at least, who he wanted to punish.
According to CBS News, Rumsfeld wanted as
much information as possible about the
attacks, and told his fact-finding team to
"go massive. ... Sweep it all up. Things
related and not." He already had
intelligence indicating a connection to
Osama (whom he called "Usama"), but he
wanted more because he had other goals in
mind. He wanted intelligence "good enough
to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same
time. Not only U.B.L."
W.A.B.O.B.S!
I say Osama, you say Usama ... and Rumsfeld
just says the magic word "Saddam" and
before you know it, everyone else was
saying it, too! Retired Gen. Wesley Clark
has said that he received phone calls on
September 11 and in the weeks after from
people at "think tanks" and from people
within the White House telling him to use
his position as a pundit for CNN to
"connect" 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. He said
he'd do it if someone could show him the
proof. No one could.
During the buildup to war in the fall of
2002, Bush and members of his
administration kept repeating the claim,
keeping it uncluttered by specifics (also
known as "facts") so it stayed nice and
simple and easy to remember. Bush circled
the country at campaign stops for
Republican congressional candidates,
inseminating the minds of the American
people with the bogus Saddam/Osama
connection on a continuous loop.
Just in case we missed the point, Bush
continued to hammer it home in his State of
the Union address on January 28, 2003:
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret
communications, and statements by people
now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein
aids and protects terrorists, including
members of al Qaeda," Bush insisted.
Immediately following the address, a CBS
online poll found that support for U.S.
military action in Iraq increased.
A week later, on February 5, Bush's claims
were echoed by Secretary of State Colin
Powell in his lengthy address to the United
Nations Security Council. After detailing
what Powell said were Iraq's numerous
failures to comply with weapons
inspections, he moved on to the
Saddam/Osama connection: "But what I want
to bring to your attention today is the
potentially much more sinister nexus
between Iraq and the al Qaeda network, a
nexus that combines classic terrorist
organizations and modern methods of murder."
But the meat of the administration's
"evidence" had already begun to turn
rancid. During that same first week of
February, a British intelligence report
leaked to the BBC said there were no links
between Saddam and Osama. The two evildoers
had tried to form a friendship in the past,
but it had turned out like a great episode
of "Blind Date" -- they "hated" each other.
According to the report, Bin Laden's "aims
are in ideological conflict with
present-day Iraq." On top of this, the
al-Qaida poison and explosives factory Bush
and his team claimed Saddam was harboring
was located in northern Iraq -- an area
controlled by Kurds and patrolled by U.S.
and British warplanes since the early
nineties. The north of Iraq was out of
Saddam's reach, but within our own. The
base actually belonged to Ansar al Isalam,
a militant fundamentalist group whose
leader has branded Saddam Hussein an
"enemy." A tour of the base by a large
group of international journalists quickly
revealed that no weapons were being
manufactured there.
But none of that mattered. The president
had said it -- it had to be true! Yes, this
whopper worked so well that, in the months
leading up to the war in Iraq, polls showed
that up to half of Americans said they
believed that Saddam Hussein had ties to
Osama bin Laden's network. Even before Bush
had served up his 2003 State of the Union
address, and Powell had presented the
Saddam-Osama "evidence" to the U.N., a
Knight-Ridder poll found that half of those
questioned already incorrectly thought that
one or more of the 9/11 hijackers held
Iraqi citizenship. Bush didn't even have to
say it.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
From the book "Dude, Where's My Country?"
by Michael Moore. Copyright (c) 2003 by
Michael Moore. Reprinted by permission of
Warner Books Inc., New York, N.Y. All
rights reserved.
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