Reply #42: Uh yes they lied to everyone.

[Warren Stupidity]

They did not take some people aside and say "hey this is all cherry picked bullshit we have cooked up to look like it is substantial".

You are just going to reject all the links, all the massive documentation of fraud accumulated against this administration as insufficient and hearsay but here is some more:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/11/what-the-senate-intel-commitee-found-bush-admin-manipulated-case-for-war/

Essentially, the Bush administration took the intelligence that was presented to them in the classified NIE and twisted it to present a stronger case for war in the public version of the NIE. Here are some examples:

Classified NIE: “Although we have little specific information on Iraq’s CW stockpile, Saddam Hussein probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons” of such poisons.
Unclassified NIE: The phrase “although we have little specific information” was deleted. Instead, the public report said, “Saddam probably has stocked a few hundred metric tons of CW agents.”


Classified NIE: “Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW agents and is capable of quickly producing … a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives.”
Unclassified NIE: The words “potentially against the U.S. homeland” are inserted at the end of the statement.


Classified NIE: Stated Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles “probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents.”
Unclassified NIE: A footnote in the classified version from the Air Force stating its disagreement with this claim was eliminated. The Senate Committee report stated the public NIE missed “the fact that… agency with primary responsibility for technological analysis on UAV programs did not agree with the assessment.”


Classified NIE: Included a reference to State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissenting view on whether Iraq would have a nuclear weapon this decade.
Unclassified NIE: Did not contain any mention of INR’s dissent.


Or here:

Here is Bush’s description of the Iraqi nuclear threat:

“The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

If you’re a parent watching at home with your kids, and you just happen to lack expertise on Iraq and nuclear-weapons technology, like 99.99 percent of your fellow citizens (including me), that’s a very frightening picture.

Not only did Bush put the fear of Saddam into viewers, he did so by citing sources that fence-sitters and skeptics would likely consider credible: the British government and the IAEA. For citizens who didn’t know the IAEA from Adam or what to think of it, Bush wisely included this comment earlier in the address: “We’re strongly supporting the in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world.”

What Bush didn’t include was the IAEA’s assessment — issued the day before the SOTU — of the current Iraqi nuclear “threat.” So far, the agency had found “No evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities” nor “signs of new nuclear facilities or direct support to any nuclear activity. . . . The IAEA expects to be able, within the next few months, barring exceptional circumstances and provided there is sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq, to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme.”

Such a program can’t be hidden in a basement or buried in a garden. It requires a vast, high-tech infrastructure. The “yellowcake” uranium Iraq was allegedly seeking in Africa would have to be enriched to become weapons-grade. A nuclear consultant quoted on July 20, 2003 in the British newspaper The Independent estimated the enrichment plant would be “the size of 30 football pitches” — i.e., 30 soccer fields. Such a plant could not go undetected in a country spied on from satellites and swarming with inspectors, as was the case in January 2003.

What the preparers of the SOTU did was cherry-pick an old IAEA evaluation of no revelance to 2003, about a nuclear program that was destroyed and dismantled long ago, and paired it with (dubious) assertions about recent activity to conjure up a frightening image that bore no relation to reality.

http://www.counterpunch.org/hans07242004.html



or here:

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/intelligence/11901380.htm

Doubts, dissent stripped from public version of Iraq assessment
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.

As a result, the public was given a far more definitive assessment of Iraq's plans and capabilities than President Bush and other U.S. decision-makers received from their intelligence agencies.

The stark differences between the public version and the then top-secret version of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate raise new questions about the accuracy of the public case made for a war that's claimed the lives of more than 500 U.S. service members and thousands of Iraqis.



or here:
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."



I could go on, but why bother? You have your faith and it is immune to reason.