Robert Sterling

WHITE HOUSE: WE LIED


Sun May 4 15:31:40 2003
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Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com


http://www.Mediawhoresonline.com

WHITE HOUSE: WE LIED

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS 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."

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it was
overemphasizing the danger from the weapons they claimed represented
an imminent threat - in order to gain support for committing mass
slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones to their deaths?

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and
nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other
toxins.

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it "might not
find" the weapons the regime claim represented the reason for
committing mass slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones
to their deaths?

Beyond that, the Bush administration decided it must flex muscle to
show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in
Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was
thriving.

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it would be
committing mass slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones
to their deaths to "flex US muscle" in the Middle East - and not in
response to an imminent threat?

The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its
determination to fight terrorism.

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it would be
committing mass slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones
to their deaths in order to "make a statement" - and not in response
to an imminent threat?

And officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to
make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target.

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it would be
committing mass slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones
to their deaths to target an individual that made a "perfect" symbol -
and not in response to an imminent threat?

One official said that in the end, history and the American people
will judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find
canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent.

History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether
this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate
America.

So why didn't the Bush Regime tell the American people it would be
committing mass slaughter in their name and sending their loved ones
to their deaths as a gamble - and not in response to an imminent
threat?

Could it be that the Bush Retime knew the American people would not
allow the slaughter of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the slaughter of
135 US servicemen, and the destruction of a country in their name -
on the basis of a muddled collection of unsupported hunches, gambles,
and lies?

Could it be the unelected and illegitimate election thief and his
regime hold the American people in contempt, and believe that the
people, whose loved ones would be ordered to their deaths, cannot be
trusted to award the regime the power and support to which it is
entitled? Just as they couldn't be trusted to have given the regime
sufficient votes to which it was entitled?

Could it be that the Bush Regime knew the risk was just too high that
the American people would see through even the flimsy justification
of rolling the dice blindly and hoping "history shows" a positive
outcome at some point - right through to the more obvious motives of
profit and political gain?

*****

The White House may have had a reason to go to war with Iraq that had
nothing to do with whether or not Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction.

Reason for War?
White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed
Everything
By John Cochran

W A S H I N G T O N, April 25

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 ABCNEWS 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."

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and
nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other
toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday,
President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any
such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.

If weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason for war,
what was? Here's the answer officials and advisers gave ABCNEWS.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush
administration's thinking about the Middle East - and not just Saddam
Hussein.

Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle
East would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials
feared that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope,
would always looking for someone to hate - and that someone would
always be Israel and the United States.

Europeans thought the solution was to get a peace agreement between
Israel and the Palestinians. But American officials felt a Middle
East peace agreement would only be part of the solution.

The Bush administration felt that a new start was needed in the
Middle East and that Iraq was the place to show that it is democracy -
not terrorism - that offers hope.

Sending a Message

Beyond that, the Bush administration decided it must flex muscle to
show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in
Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was
thriving.

Officials deny that Bush was captured by the aggressive views of neo-
conservatives. But Bush did agree with some of their thinking.

"We made it very public that we thought that one consequence the
president should draw from 9/11 is that it was unacceptable to sit
back and let either terrorist groups or dictators developing weapons
of mass destruction strike first at us," conservative commentator
Bill Kristol said on ABCNEWS' Nightline in March.

The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its
determination to fight terrorism. And officials acknowledge that
Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint,
the perfect target.

Other countries have such weapons, yet the United States did not go
to war with them. And though Saddam oppressed and tortured his own
people, other tyrants have done the same without incurring U.S.
military action. Finally, Saddam had ties to terrorists - but so have
several countries that the United States did not fight.

But Saddam was guilty of all these things and he met another
requirement as well - a prime location, in the heart of the Middle
East, between Syria and Iran, two countries the United States wanted
to send a message to.

That message: If you collaborate with terrorists, you do so at your
own peril.

Officials said that even if Saddam had backed down and avoided war by
admitting to having weapons of mass destruction, the world would have
received the same message; Don't mess with the United States.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said on Nightline this week that
although he believed Saddam was a serious threat and had dangerous
weapons, going to war to prove a point was wrong.

"I don't think you should go to war to set examples or send
messages," Woolsey said. Get the transcript of the Woolsey interview.

Sept. 11, 2001

But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have
gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at
least not now.

The Bush administration could probably have lived with the threat of
Saddam and might have gone after him eventually if, for example, the
Iraqi leader had become more aggressive in pursuing a nuclear program
or in sponsoring terrorism.

But again, Sept. 11 changed all that.

Listen closely, officials said, to what Bush was really saying to the
American people before the war.

"I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th," Bush said
on March 6. "The lesson is, is that we're vulnerable to attack,
wherever it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas
very seriously. We don't have to deal with them all militarily, but
we have to deal with them."

Has the war done what the officials ABCNEWS talked to wanted?

It seems to have improved the behavior of the Syrians and maybe the
Iranians, they said, although there is still concern that Iran will
meddle in Iraq. And it may have even put some fear in the North
Koreans, they added. Plus, they said it probably has helped the
Middle East peace process.

But will Iraq be the model that can persuade young Arabs there is
more to life than hatred? Too early to know, they said.

Their point: We are deeply worried about the Shiites. It will be a
tragedy if radical, anti-American elements gain control in post-
Saddam Iraq.

One official said that in the end, history and the American people
will judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find
canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent.

History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether
this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate
America.
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