President Bush is trying to portray his leadership as a “steady” force in a time of turmoil. That’s not such a good trait when you continue to get things wrong.
A story in today’s Washington Post offers insight into the intelligence behind claims that Iraq had a fleet of mobile bioweapons labs. According to the report, claims about this fleet were largely based on the testimony of an Iraqi defector who U.S. intelligence never even interviewed. In the buildup to war (i.e., the scare campaign), the administration simply broadcast hearsay they received from another country without any solid evidence to support his claims.
The blunders continued after the war commenced. You may recall that upon the May 11 NBC announcement that we had discovered some “suspicious” trailers, Bush proclaimed it proof Iraq had banned weapons (“We found them”). Within a month, David Kay learned that analysts doubted the trailers were part of a biological-agent production system. Yet as late as January Dick Cheney was still claiming the trailers “conclusive evidence, if you will, that he [Hussein] did in fact have programs of mass destruction.”
I guess you can call that “steady.”
Jeff-perado (stutz[at]unlv.nevada[dot]edu) has been assessing Bush’s war-time campaign talk and observes:
It seems as though before the war, there was “no doubt” of “grave and gathering danger” to Americans living on American soil due to Hussein’s weapons and Al Qaeda connections. It seems (according to Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld) that before the war, the liberation of Iraqis from Hussein would be greeted with enthusiasm and flowers thrown at the feet of soldiers. Now we, as Americans, today know the truth, these were only hyped up excuses for furthering the administration’s clandestine and secretive goals. So as a result of reality creeping into the media, Bush and Co. has had to backpedal and suggest that they didn’t say what they actually did say. Bush now says WMD’s and the threat to our homeland was actually NOT the reason for the deaths of American sons and daughters, but the freedom of Iraqis from their own tyrannical government was the main goal. Bush in 2000 said explicitly that the U.S. was not in that business (nation building). Today Bush, the man clinging to his ill-gotten job, says; no, I was not clear in my intent (I am never wrong, so nation building then — in 2000 — is not the same as nation building today — in 2004) in my year 2000 campaign claims. It is, in fact our responsibility to bomb and rebuild other nations in America’s image.”
. . .
A lot has been made on both sides about Bush labeling himself as a “war president.” I think we all know this is a self-identification. America has been at war for decades against drugs. Tens of thousands of Americans have died at the hands of, and as a result of the wares of narco-terrorists from such countries as Columbia, Afghanistan, Mexico and many others. But only when four airplanes absconded by radical Mid-East religio-terrorists did this assault against America become a true war. It was at that point that the “war on drugs” was dropped in favor of a “war on terror.” Only this war (on terror) involved the U.S. military on a full-out scale. (Since the 80’s and the days of Reagan, we have sent “advisors” to Columbia, and that constituted the war (on drugs).) This makes this “war president” a total hypocrite, as the real danger to American citizens still goes unopposed, yet nearly 600 Americans, to date, have died because Saddam was a “madman,” yet posed no real threat to Americans, but a huge threat to his fellow Iraqis. Again, I will say, the Chinese and Cuban dictatorships are as equally as guilty as Hussein of “being a madman.” Since Bush now says WMD’s was not his REAL reason for the invasion, then Bush is a hypocrite for not invading and “nation building” both China and Cuba.
But since Bush’s logic is so screwed up as to be incomprehensible, then debating his philosophy becomes much like arguing with the weather. What needs to be done is to spread the truth among his followers, so that hopefully they begin to grasp the absurdities Bush spews forth. Why would Bush tell Americans we are all in “grave danger” if the truth is Bush wanted to depose Hussein for the sake of Iraqis — NOT AMERICANS! Why not start with the truth? Americans prefer to truth to a lie… unless the truth suggests an error that was made on our part. Then a lie seems to be preferable. This is the only logical reason I can ascertain as to why ANYONE would want to vote for Bush, that the Big Lie is preferable to the ugly truth.