Reply #15: Rumsfeld Lies Documented

[flyarm]

Rumsfeld Lies Documented

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/bodyguard

Rumsfeld Lies Documented
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2006-05-05 21:56. Evidence
OIL, POWER AND EMPIRE
Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda
Larry Everest

Common Courage Press
Monroe, Maine
Copyright © 2004 by Larry Everest.
All rights reserved.

**************

Appendix
“A Bodyguard of Lies”
Dissecting U.S. Pretexts for War

Of course, this conjures up Winston Churchill’s famous phrase when he said—don’t quote me on this, okay? I don’t want to be quoted on this, so don’t quote me. He said ‘sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.’
—Donald Rumsfeld, US Department of Defense Briefing, September 25, 2001 1
“To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war—a global show of American power and democracy.
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABC News the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
“We were not lying,” said one official. “but it was just a matter of emphasis.”
—ABC News, April 25, 2003 2
In fact, they were lying. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government relentlessly created pretexts to wage war against Iraq. Charges were featured daily on the front pages of newspapers and as lead stories on TV. As the truth leaked out before the war, it was buried, downplayed, or barely reported. No wonder a USA Today poll reported that over 50 percent of Americans believed there was a direct link between the Sept. 11 attacks and Saddam Hussein,3 even though there was no evidence of such a connection.
The main pretexts that the U.S. used to argue for war on Iraq were that:
1. Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in violation of UN resolutions;
2. with such weapons, Iraq posed a significant threat to the U.S. and neighboring countries; and
3. Iraq was linked to alleged terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda.
Yet, as of this writing, no “weapons of mass destruction” have been found in Iraq, more than half a year after the U.S. invasion, and it seems very unlikely that the U.S. will ever find anything resembling the quantities alleged to justify the invasion. In addition, no credible link had been established between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, the Ansar al-Islam group, September 11th, or any attack against the U.S. in at least ten years. What emerges is a portrait of a big power willing to use any fig leaf, no matter how flimsy, to cover its naked imperialist motives for waging war on Iraq.
In fact, by the end of the summer 2003, in the face of the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction and some exposure of the “intelligence” relied upon by the White House, the Bush administration began to revise its reasons for invading Iraq, downplaying the WMD pretext. Rather than charge that Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction, the administration began to claim only that Iraq had a WMD “program,” that the invasion was intended to “liberate” the people of Iraq, and that it was part of an overall effort to transform the Middle East. The Washington Post noted, “As the search for weapons in Iraq continues without success, the Bush administration has moved to emphasize a different rationale for the war against Saddam Hussein: using Iraq as the ‘linchpin’ to transform the Middle East and thereby reduce the terrorist threat to the United States. President Bush, who has stopped talking about Iraq’s weapons, said…that ‘the rise of a free and peaceful Iraq is critical to the stability of the Middle East, and a stable Middle East is critical to the security of the American people.’”4# Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz, after a trip to Iraq, said flat out, “I’m not concerned about weapons of mass destruction…. I’m concerned about getting Iraq on its feet. I didn’t come on a search for weapons of mass destruction.”#5
The following discussion examines some of the charges that were raised to justify the attack on Iraq. It also examines government statements during and after the war related to weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s alleged links to terrorism.

more at link!!!!!!!!!!

fly