Did the Bush Administration deceive Americans into supporting the Iraq war?

[lone wolf]

I chose #3 - with the exception to fault. They believed faulty information in the same way other people swallow gossip and propaganda....

 

[taxslave]

Missed the important box on the poll
DO WE CARE?

 

[JLM]

Please vote in the poll above. You can vote multiple times and the results are public.

Did the Bush Administration deliberately deceive Americans into supporting the 2003 war against Iraq?

A March 6, 2003, Presidential press conference where President Bush outlines justification for war:


Yes, Iraq Definitely Had WMD, Vast Majority Of Polled Republicans Insist

Who really wants to rediscuss stuff that has already been beaten to death ad infinitim. Most people were behind Bush the day the war started and were cheering the day Saddam's statue was tipped over. Let go of it!

 

[taxslave]

Typical of lefies, always rehashing yesterdays battles instead of looking forward.

 

[Corduroy]

There were plenty of good reasons to invade Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to use those reasons in their rationale. Instead they chose to sell the war and so used a reason they thought could be best sold to Americans: the very showy and scary threat of weapons of mass destruction being used on Americans. I think they expected to find WMDs but lied about the evidence for it.

 

[darkbeaver]

Typical of lefies, always rehashing yesterdays battles instead of looking forward.

Yeah they're slow eh, we looked forward to Libya, and Tunisia and Egypt and Syria and Iran and the USA and someday soon Canada oh and I almost forgot the whole continent of Africa. Space does not permit the other forward looking regions included on the list of places to save for democracy.

There were plenty of good reasons to invade Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to use those reasons in their rationale. Instead they chose to sell the war and so used a reason they thought could be best sold to Americans: the very showy and scary threat of weapons of mass destruction being used on Americans. I think they expected to find WMDs but lied about the evidence for it.

List the good reasons. I hope they are consistent with international law.

 

[Nuggler]

There were plenty of good reasons to invade Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to use those reasons in their rationale. Instead they chose to sell the war and so used a reason they thought could be best sold to Americans: the very showy and scary threat of weapons of mass destruction being used on Americans. I think they expected to find WMDs but lied about the evidence for it.

Sorry but d'oh

Typical of lefies, always rehashing yesterdays battles instead of looking forward.

Oh stop, jeez Tax, ya sound like a parrot.

Remember what yer teacher told ya about repeating history if you don't remember it.

Righty Romney obviously forgot. Yaseeee!

 

[EagleSmack]

There were plenty of good reasons to invade Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to use those reasons in their rationale. Instead they chose to sell the war and so used a reason they thought could be best sold to Americans: the very showy and scary threat of weapons of mass destruction being used on Americans. I think they expected to find WMDs but lied about the evidence for it.

Exactly... there were plenty. They chose one reason to hang their hats on. I think that was foolish. A list of 100 reasons was put out there in addition to the WMDs.

He should have just done what Obama did in Libya... don't give ANY reasons and just do it.

 

[Corduroy]

List the good reasons. I hope they are consistent with international law.

The invasion of Iran - against international law
The invasion of Kuwait - against international law
Genocide - against international law

In fact, I was wrong when I said the Bush administration didn't use good reasons to invade Iraq. WMDs were what they used to sell the war to the public, but because the war itself was against international law they used the legal argument that they were enforcing international law (including non-proliferation) because the UN was unwilling to do so (hence the Coalition of the Willing).

Personally, I have no respect for international law precisely for this very reason. I don't give a flying **** if you hope the reasons for invasion are consistent with international law. International law is a joke. Conveniently though, they are consistent with the law. International law exists to give the powerful excuses to act if they want to. It is conveniently ignored when powerful states don't want to act. Under international law, Saddam Hussein should have been overthrown decades before he was.

 

[JLM]

There were plenty of good reasons to invade Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to use those reasons in their rationale. Instead they chose to sell the war and so used a reason they thought could be best sold to Americans: the very showy and scary threat of weapons of mass destruction being used on Americans. I think they expected to find WMDs but lied about the evidence for it.

W.M.D.s are good enough for me! When you are dealing with an arsonist would you not think to check for matches?

 

[darkbeaver]

The invasion of Iran - against international law
The invasion of Kuwait - against international law
Genocide - against international law

In fact, I was wrong when I said the Bush administration didn't use good reasons to invade Iraq. WMDs were what they used to sell the war to the public, but because the war itself was against international law they used the legal argument that they were enforcing international law (including non-proliferation) because the UN was unwilling to do so (hence the Coalition of the Willing).

Personally, I have no respect for international law precisely for this very reason. I don't give a flying **** if you hope the reasons for invasion are consistent with international law. International law is a joke. Conveniently though, they are consistent with the law. International law exists to give the powerful excuses to act if they want to. It is conveniently ignored when powerful states don't want to act. Under international law, Saddam Hussein should have been overthrown decades before he was.

Of course international law is a joke and if we we're serious about it's application the USA would have been legally bombed into the dark ages shortly after the ink dried on the articles. So was there any reason to invade, occupy and destroy old Iraq? Excluding invasion and genocide which are widely accepted as "worth the price" and popularly applied by the NATO Axis. I wonder if you might consider the massive reserves of hydro carbons lying about as a possible er reason? Or is that just silly?

 

[earth_as_one]

So if I understand some votes here, some of you believe this was just a mistake based on bad intel along the lines of:

Oops, we thought you had WMDs when we invaded your country, but as it turns out, you never had any.

So now that we realize that we invaded and occupied your country despite the fact that your government met all conditions for lifting economic sanctions years ago, told the truth in a pre-war declaration and cooperated with UN weapon inspectors, we are just going help ourselves to your oil and other resources. Also don't expect an apology or a statement of remorse for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Be thankful we replaced your dictator with a puppet.

Seriously? Does that about summarize some opinions here?

 

[JLM]

So if I understand some votes here, some of you believe this was just a mistake based on bad intel along the lines of:

Oops, we thought you had WMDs when we invaded your country, but as it turns out, you never had any.

So now that we realize that we invaded and occupied your country despite the fact that your government met all conditions for lifting economic sanctions years ago, told the truth in a pre-war declaration and cooperated with UN weapon inspectors, we are just going help ourselves to your oil and other resources. Also don't expect an apology or a statement of remorse for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and seizing control of your oil resources. Be thankful we replaced your dictator with a puppet.

Seriously?

Time to get a grip, man. Ask the Kurds about W.M.D.s and if they were ever a victim. Can you please provide a link showing how many barrels of oil was stolen from Iraq?

 

[earth_as_one]

Audit reveals billions of dollars of Iraqi oil funds gone missing | World news | The Guardian

Also, if you can control the production of oil, you can influence the price (oil company profits) and use oil to apply pressure on oil consuming nations like India and China.

 

[Spade]

History will judge the Bush Administration harshly.

 

[earth_as_one]

So why did we go to war with Iraq?

The short answer is "oil." But that's not the whole story.

Briefly, we went to war with Iraq because an influential group of conservatives (now known as "neo-cons") convinced President George W. Bush that it was in America's best interests to conquer Iraq as a first step toward dominating the oil-producing nations in the Middle East and eventually the world.

Not insignificantly, these same neo-cons wanted to eliminate Iraq as a threat to their darling ally, Israel.

Their plan is laid out in detail on the Web at newamericancentury.org.
(see also http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1221.htm)

So we invaded Iraq not to save ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, not to rid the world of a brutal dictator and not to avenge the murders of Sept. 11. We invaded Iraq because Bush and his pals think America should rule the world.

The Real Reason We're In Iraq

 

[Corduroy]

Of course international law is a joke and if we we're serious about it's application the USA would have been legally bombed into the dark ages shortly after the ink dried on the articles. So was there any reason to invade, occupy and destroy old Iraq? Excluding invasion and genocide which are widely accepted as "worth the price" and popularly applied by the NATO Axis. I wonder if you might consider the massive reserves of hydro carbons lying about as a possible er reason? Or is that just silly?

You asked me to provide the reasons with reference to international law. I provided them with reference to international law. If you agree with me that international law is a joke, then why did you want reasons consistent with international law? And now you're saying that the reasons I provided should be excluded without a real explanation.

I gave you what you asked for, but not what you wanted. You want the reason to be "OIL!!!!!111" but you foolishly constructed your argument so that I could provide much better reasons and now you're trying to backtrack, dishonestly reconstructing whatever your point is so that it won't include things like genocide. But you don't have a good reason to exclude genocide, so you just say "exclude genocide." This is an exceptionally pathetic attempt and flagrantly dishonest.

So if I understand some votes here, some of you believe this was just a mistake based on bad intel along the lines of:

Oops, we thought you had WMDs when we invaded your country, but as it turns out, you never had any.

So now that we realize that we invaded and occupied your country despite the fact that your government met all conditions for lifting economic sanctions years ago, told the truth in a pre-war declaration and cooperated with UN weapon inspectors, we are just going help ourselves to your oil and other resources. Also don't expect an apology or a statement of remorse for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Be thankful we replaced your dictator with a puppet.

Seriously? Does that about summarize some opinions here?

That doesn't summarize my opinion.

 

[Kreskin]

Give Bush a break, he still can't find Iraq on a map.

 

[earth_as_one]

C, your reasons justify an invasion of Iraq back in the late 1980's, but have little bearing on why the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Before the 2003 war, Iraq was more or less peaceful relative to what happened since the war.

Human Rights in Iraq 2002
Scores of people, including possible prisoners of conscience, were executed. A general amnesty for prisoners was announced, but the fate of tens of thousands of people who "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown. Non-Arabs, mostly Kurds, in the Kirkuk region continued to be forcibly expelled to Iraqi Kurdistan. Relatives of opposition activists continued to receive threats.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,AMNESTY,ANNUALREPORT,IRQ,,3edb47d84,0.html

Human Rights in Iraq 2003
Hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands injured as a result of bombing by US-led Coalition forces during a war on Iraq launched in March. Mass graves containing thousands of bodies of victims of human rights violations committed under the government of President Saddam Hussain were unearthed. Thousands of people were arrested and detained without charge or trial during the year. Many civilians were killed as a result of excessive use of force by Coalition forces. Scores of women were abducted, raped and killed as law and order broke down after the war. Torture and ill-treatment by Coalition forces were widespread. Armed groups were responsible for gross human rights abuses: scores of civilians, including foreigners, were killed in attacks. A bomb attack on the UN headquarters in August killed 22 people.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,AMNESTY,,IRQ,,40b5a1f710,0.html

If genocide in the 1980's was the reason for invading Iraq 15-20 years later, then would it also be reasonable to assume that at some point in the future the US is going to invade and occupy the Democracratic Republioc of Congo, which in 2003 was 5 years into a genocidal civil war that had killed 3 million people.

Which country do you think had a more serious problem with genocide in 2003???
3 million dead in the DRC vs scores executed in Iraq.

Please explain why a historic genocide in Iraq during the 1980's which resulted in thousands of deaths was a more urgent problem than an ongoing genocidal war in the DRC which had already killed millions and by the time it end in 2008, would kill millions more????

The Second Congo War (also known as the Great War of Africa) began in August 1998, little more than a year after the First Congo War and involving some of the same issues, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and officially ended in July 2003 when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power. However, hostilities have continued since then in the ongoing Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, and the Kivu and Ituri conflicts.

The deadliest war in modern African history, it has directly involved eight African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. By 2008, the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation,[6] making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II.[7] Millions more were displaced from their homes or sought asylum in neighboring countries.[8]

Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the former belligerents to create a government of national unity, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from easily preventable cases of malnutrition and disease.[9]

Second Congo War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


If the US had invaded the Congo in 2003 it could have ended that genocidal war and saved millions of lives. Are you certain invading Iraq had nothing to do with Iraq's oil wealth???

 

[Corduroy]

C, your reasons justify an invasion of Iraq back in the late 1980's, but have little bearing on why the US invaded Iraq in 2003.

I don't believe that Saddam Hussein's crimes had a statute of limitation. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein, his trial and execution were overdue, not made unnecessary because of 20 years of international negligence. You shouldn't be allowed to get away with a crime because the courts are slow to prosecute.

In 2003 Iraq was peaceful. The only Iraqis suffering in 2003 before the invasion were a direct consequence of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq

Oh please. You should know better than this.

If genocide in the 1980's was the reason for invading Iraq 15-20 years later, then would it also be reasonable to assume that at some point in the future the US is going to invade and occupy the Democracratic Republioc of Congo, which experienced a genocidal civil war from 1998-2003 which killed 3 million people.

Please explain why a historic genocide in Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Kurds was a more urgent problem than the ongoing genocidal war in the DRC which was killing millions????

I never said that Iraq was more urgent than the Congo.