Bush did not lie on Iraq

[Gamblor]

Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying

[jokerswild]

Naive spin. Grow up.

[andyfox]

Phew! That'a a relief.

[ThaSaltCracka]

isn't factcheck.org the site Cheney cited?

[Cyrus]

"Bush did not lie on Iraq."

Yeah, Bush did not lie down on Iraq, more than a thousand American soldiers lied down dead. I assume this is what you meant, right?

No, seriously, spare us the pro-Bush rhetoric. The man has done your job alright, no need to ram the point harder at our ribs.

The only thing, virtually the only good thing that has come out of Iraq's invasion was that the United States neutralized an enemy of Israel. That's all.

As far as the United States interests are concerned, there is simply no gain. As a matter of fact, the US interests have been hurt. As to national security, well, the less said the better. Suffice to mention that there are now more terrorists in Iraq then ever before.

So, be thankful, but also be humble. Don't rub it in.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Naive spin. Grow up.

[/ QUOTE ]

You obviously don't watch CSPAN.

[Gamblor]

But he didn't lie, as claimed by nearly all of you, and all of the US media.

I am a lifelong Democrat supporter, but I can't get behind John Kerry. I said it before, Clinton was the epitome of the Presidency. And until I see someone like him (scandals and all) I'm a Republican.

[pokerjo22]

This seems to overlook the original reason we went to war in Iraq - that Saddam was behind 9/11. When that didn't stick, Bush changed it to Saddam had WMDs. And when that didnt stick it got changed to 'time for a regime change'.

[tanda]

Of course Bush did not lie.

When it became clear that WMDs (spring-summer of 2003) would not be found, I commented to a friend that I did not think Bush could be re-elected. My thought was that the Dems would say "Mr. President, were you a liar or a fool?"

Less perjoratively, "Mr. President, your belief that Iraq had WMDs was not accurate. Was your publicly expressed belief in that accuracy genuine, in which case it is an issue of competency, or not genuine, in which case it is a question of honesty?"

Since Bush expressed an opinion shared by Reps, Dems, Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton, Powell, Chirac, and the intelligence services of USA, GB, France, Russia and Israel, it seems clear that he genuinely believed what everybody else believed. Thus, he did not lie. A lie requires that he knew when the statement was made that it was false. How would he have known this? What evidence is there that he knew this?

So, the answer to "Were you a liar of a fool?" is clearly not the former. It may be the latter.

The Bush criticism may be well-founded on the issue of competency (relying on inaccurate information, not determining that it was inaccurate) and the excuse that he made the same mistake as others may not be acceptable since, unlike those others, he went to war on that information.

But the fact that his critics have a good basis to criticize him on competency does not excuse the clearly false defamatory comments about his honesty.

[tolbiny]

Both Condi Rice and Colin Powell made statements at some point before the war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. "everybody" in the world did not agree that he still had them, two high ranking members in his administration said they no longer existed.
Weather or not he intentionally ignored whatever evidence they had, or felt that other evidence outweighed what Powell and Rice had, we will never know.
But i wil say thi- IF he intentionally ignored, or made light of, evidenne that was contrary to his opinion, then i consider that a lie.
If he felt that the information Rice and powell were using was inaccurate then a mistake was made- weather it was his or the intelligence communities, or those briefing him, someone made a mistake, and he bears some responsibility for it.