Representative Jim McDermott
McDermott Stands Against Bush Iraq Plans
Mon Oct 20 20:46:59 2003
64.140.158.101

McDermott Stands Against Bush Iraq Plans
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr031016.html

Washington, DC-Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) addressed the Bush administration's Iraq policy today through a parliamentary device intended to protect the integrity of the Congressional Record. Noting that many of the claims the President conveyed to Congress in its rush to war are now known to have been wrong, McDermott offered a privileged resolution to correct the Congressional Record for January 28, 2003, the date of President Bush's State of the Union speech, to reflect the inaccuracy of four specific stated claims made by the President to Congress. These statements are:

1. "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
2. "Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
3. "From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves."
4. "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."

Because Mr. McDermott's resolution addresses the veracity of the Congressional Record, it must be brought to the floor within the next two legislative days.

"Now that the facts are better understood, it is critical for Congress to acknowledge that the President ignored overwhelming evidence that Saddam Hussein did not try to buy uranium from Niger; that seized aluminum tubes were not suitable for the production of nuclear weapons; that there is no evidence that thousands of Iraqis were at work trying to trick U.N inspectors; and finally there is not now, or ever was evidence revealed by the Administration indicating that Saddam Hussein had connections to al Qaeda."

"The President fed us these misrepresentations from the floor of the people's House, and he used them to pave the path to war. Now that we know the facts, I am asking the House to make a note in the record that these statements were inaccurate." McDermott said.

McDermott also forcefully denounced the President's most recent funding request, an additional $87 billion dollars to continue his current policies in Iraq. "This Administration provides no plan, no accountability, and no rationale for its actions," said McDermott, noting that Congress has already provided more than $75 billion for the President's Iraq operation and has just approved the President's request for the largest Department of Defense budget in history, providing funds that the President can reprogram for Iraq if and when the troops need added funding.

In a floor speech announcing he would vote against this spending, McDermott said, "I did not support this war and I have personally seen the soldiers whose lives that have been shattered by the President's failed agenda. However, despite this abuse of the lives and loyalties of our troops, I recognize that we have an unquestionable obligation to support them.

McDermott continued, "This has to stop now. The President wants Congress to give him money without accounting for his failed policies. The premise of this war was wrong, the tactics of this war were wrong, the urgency to go to war was wrong, and the reasons for war that the President said on the floor of the House were wrong. And now he wants the American people to throw good money after bad. Before we give this administration another blank check, they need to be held accountable."
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All presidents have lied, but George W. Bush has relentlessly abused the truth.
http://www.bushlies.com/aboutthebook.php

In THE LIES OF GEORGE W. BUSH: MASTERING THE POLITICS OF DECEPTION (Crown Publishers, October 2003)—a steely and scathing indictment of the president and his advisers—David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation and a Fox News Channel contributor, reveals and examines the deceptions at the heart of the Bush presidency. In a stunning piece of journalism, he details and substantiates the all-too many times Bush and his aides have knowingly misled the American public to advance their own interests and agenda.

When campaigning for the presidency, Bush vowed to “restore” honor and integrity to the Oval Office, but Corn uses the president’s own words and deeds to prove beyond a doubt that this claim was the first lie of many. In other instances of presidential prevarication, Bush has:

• Brazenly misrepresented intelligence data and relied on dishonest arguments to whip up support for war with Iraq;
• Made numerous false statements about the provisions and effects of his super-sized tax cuts;
• Offered disingenuous and misleading explanations about the 9/11 attacks, the war on terrorism, and homeland security;
• Lied about his connections—and those of his administration—to corporate crooks;
• Presented deceptive claims to sell controversial policies on the environment, stem cell research, missile defense, abortion, energy, Social Security, health care, education, and other crucial issues;
• Dishonestly claimed to be a positive campaigner while engaging in deceitful and down-and-dirty tactics during the 2000 presidential campaign and recount drama.

THE LIES OF GEORGE W. BUSH is no partisan whine. It is a carefully constructed, well-developed, and convincing fact-driven account that shows how Bush has consistently relied upon duplicity to wage political and policy battles. The book covers lies Bush told as a presidential candidate (“I have been very candid about my past”); in his first days in office (“We pulled back [the arsenic standard] so that we could make a decision based upon sound science”); while selling a war to the American people (“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapon ever devised”); and as a crusader for tax cuts (“Tax relief for everybody . . . while still reducing our national debt and funding important priorities”). Corn explains with wit and style how Bush managed to get away with it, and he explores the dangerous consequences of White House deceit in a perilous age.
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10/19/03 - State Dept. Study Undercuts Rice

In September, national security adviser Condoled Rice deflected criticism that the Bush administration had not planned adequately for the postwar occupation by saying, "if there was something that was really underestimated [by the Bush White House], it was how really awful Sadism Hussein was to his own people" and how deteriorated the Iraq infrastructure had become under Hussein's rule. She was maintaining that the administration had been surprised by the postwar reconstruction challenges. Yet today The New York Times reveals that a year-long, prewar study conducted by the State Department had predicted many of the problems confronted by the US occupation authority. The study, for instance, noted that Iraq's electrical and water systems were in terrible shape and that an Iraqi society brutalized by Hussein might not be able to quickly rebuild its civil institutions. "Several officials said," according to the newspaper, "that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials." And apparently by Rice as well

10/12/03 - Did Bush Overstate Terror Win?

Last January, in his State of the Union address, Bush declared, "We've broken al Qaeda cells in Hamburg, London, Paris, as well as Buffalo, NY. Yet a joint New York Times/Frontlines investigation finds that the "terrorist cell" in Lackawanna, New York, might not have truly been a terrorist cell. According to the newspaper, "an examination of the [Lackawanna] case...demonstrates that behind Washington's sweeping proclamations is a more measured victor over a profoundly ambigious threat." That is, the six men from Lackawanna who pleaded guilty to training with al Qaeda might not have comprised a working al Qaeda cell. The federal prosecutor in the case, Michael Battle, refuses to call this group a terrorist cell. He says, "It's a heavy burden to prove, and I wasn't prepared to do that."

10/10/03 - Cheney Echoes A False Dichotomy

At the conservative Heritage Foundation, Cheney delivers a combative speech justifying the war in Iraq. He relies heavily on the recent testimony of chief WMD hunter David Kay, citing what Kay called "WMD-related program activities." Cheney does not mention that Kay has not yet found any actual WMDs, but he notes that Kay and his team uncovered "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses" that "contained equipment suitable for chemical and biological weapons research." That does seem like a subject worth investigating. But Kay has not concluded this equipment was used for WMD research. He only said it was suitable for such research activity, which is not the same as producing weapons. Yet later in the speech, Cheney maintains that Hussein had "a hidden biological weapons program capable of producing deadly agents on short notice." Maybe. But that's not what Kay has stated.

Echoing his boss (see the 10/09/03 item below), Cheney also misrepresents the prewar options. "This is the debate before the American people, and it is of more than academic interest," he declares. "It comes down to a choice between action that assures our security and inaction that allows dangers to grow....President Bush declined the course of inaction." No, Bush declined the course of more intrusive and assertive inspections. That was not inaction. Bush and Cheney could now explain why they thought such steps would not have been effective. Instead, they pretend these possibilities did not exist. They are dishonest historians.

10/10/03 - Did EPA Mislead Congress on Clean Air?

The Washington Post reports that two former EPA enforcement officials are saying that a senior EPA official misled Congress in 2002 when he testified that a Bush administration initiative to ease clean air enforcement rules would not impede pending lawsuits against power plants accused of violating clean air rules. The senior EPA official had told Congress that his assessment was based on numerous meetings with government lawyers, including those in the EPA's enforcement office. But two former officials in the EPA's enforcement office tell the newspaper that they had informed the senior ranks of the EPA that the proposed rule change would inevitably undermine these enforcement cases.

10/09/03 - Bush (Again) Presents False Dichotomy

As part of the administration's pro-war PR-blitz, Bush speaks before a crowd of Air National Guard and Army National Guard reservists in New Hampshire (no jokes, please--see the Top Ten Lies). He defends his record on the war on terrorism. He says that "thanks to our great military...the Afghan people are free." That's an overstatement, given that many regions of Afghanistan are still under the control of warlords. And in some areas, resurgent fundamentalists have been destroying schools for girls. A more accurate boast would be some Afghans are more free; many are not.

Regarding the war in Iraq, Bush resorts to the usual spin. And he says, "I acted because I was not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman. I was not about to stand by and wait and trust in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein." Bush is misrepresenting the prewar choices. None of the serious-minded opponents to war advocated standing by and trusting Hussein. The argument was that intrusive and aggressive inspections should be attempted before deciding to go to war. As he did before the war, Bush insists the options were war or doing nothing. That was not so.
http://www.bushlies.com/newlies.php

• The Man Who Knew — CBS News, Mon Oct 20 22:05