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Bush/Cheney Still Lie with Abandon
by Robert Parry
While other politicians might spin some facts in a policy debate or tell a fib about a personal indiscretion, President Bush and Vice President Cheney act as if they have the power and the right to manufacture reality itself, often on matters of grave significance that bear on war and peace or the future of the nation.
by Robert Parry
What makes George W. Bush and Dick Cheney such extraordinary threats to the future of American democracy is their readiness to tell half-truths and outright lies consistently without any apparent fear of accountability.
While other politicians might spin some facts in a policy debate or tell a fib about a personal indiscretion, President Bush and Vice President Cheney act as if they have the power and the right to manufacture reality itself, often on matters of grave significance that bear on war and peace or the future of the nation.
Even in the face of growing public skepticism, Bush and
Cheney continue to invent new lies and retell old ones, seemingly with
the goal of at least keeping their gullible right-wing “base” behind
the faux reality depicted on Fox News, the Rush Limbaugh radio show and
other right-wing media outlets.
So, on April 5, Cheney showed no hesitancy in telling Limbaugh’s listeners both an old canard about how Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in league with al-Qaeda terrorists and a new one about how a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq would “play right into the hands of al-Qaeda.”
Cheney surely knows that U.S. intelligence analysts have reached the opposite conclusions on both points – that there was no operational relationship between Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda; that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was based in a section of northern Iraq outside Hussein’s control; and that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been a boon to al-Qaeda that the terrorist group wants to extend, not end.
As one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, known as “Atiyah,” wrote two years ago, “prolonging the war is in our interest.” The letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, and obtained by U.S. intelligence after Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, urged that Zarqawi’s jihadists in Iraq show patience and restraint in deepening their ties to Iraqi Sunni insurgents.
[To read the “prolonging the war” passage from the Atiyah letter at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, click here and then scroll down to the bottom of page 16 and the top of page 17.]
Other intelligence information has revealed that in 2004-05, al-Qaeda’s situation both in Iraq and along the Pakistani-Afghan border was precarious, with their hopes tied to a continuation of Bush’s blunderbuss strategies in order to deepen alienation between the Muslim world and the West. Al-Qaeda leaders feared that a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would cause many young recruits to put down their guns and go home. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]
In late October 2004, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that bin Laden released a pre-election video with the intent of helping Bush gain a second term so his policies would continue. Bin Laden devoted most of his harangue to denouncing Bush in what looked like a Brer Rabbit ploy of “Don’t throw me in the briar patch” – when that was exactly where he wanted to go.
After bin Laden’s video dominated the news on the Friday before Election 2004, a meeting of senior CIA analysts began with deputy CIA director John McLaughlin observing that “bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President,” according to Ron Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine, which relies heavily on CIA insiders.
“Certainly,” CIA deputy associate director for intelligence Jami Miscik said, “he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years,” according to Suskind’s account of the meeting.
As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. “An ocean of hard truths before them – such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want Bush reelected – remained untouched,” Suskind wrote.
If helping Bush was bin Laden’s intent, the strategy appeared to work. According to two last-minute polls, Bush moved from a virtual dead heat with Sen. John Kerry to about a five percentage point lead and hung on to win by an official margin of less than three points. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Agrees Bin Laden Helped in ‘04”]
So, on April 5, Cheney showed no hesitancy in telling Limbaugh’s listeners both an old canard about how Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in league with al-Qaeda terrorists and a new one about how a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq would “play right into the hands of al-Qaeda.”
Cheney surely knows that U.S. intelligence analysts have reached the opposite conclusions on both points – that there was no operational relationship between Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda; that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was based in a section of northern Iraq outside Hussein’s control; and that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been a boon to al-Qaeda that the terrorist group wants to extend, not end.
As one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, known as “Atiyah,” wrote two years ago, “prolonging the war is in our interest.” The letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, and obtained by U.S. intelligence after Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, urged that Zarqawi’s jihadists in Iraq show patience and restraint in deepening their ties to Iraqi Sunni insurgents.
[To read the “prolonging the war” passage from the Atiyah letter at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, click here and then scroll down to the bottom of page 16 and the top of page 17.]
Other intelligence information has revealed that in 2004-05, al-Qaeda’s situation both in Iraq and along the Pakistani-Afghan border was precarious, with their hopes tied to a continuation of Bush’s blunderbuss strategies in order to deepen alienation between the Muslim world and the West. Al-Qaeda leaders feared that a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would cause many young recruits to put down their guns and go home. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]
In late October 2004, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that bin Laden released a pre-election video with the intent of helping Bush gain a second term so his policies would continue. Bin Laden devoted most of his harangue to denouncing Bush in what looked like a Brer Rabbit ploy of “Don’t throw me in the briar patch” – when that was exactly where he wanted to go.
After bin Laden’s video dominated the news on the Friday before Election 2004, a meeting of senior CIA analysts began with deputy CIA director John McLaughlin observing that “bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President,” according to Ron Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine, which relies heavily on CIA insiders.
“Certainly,” CIA deputy associate director for intelligence Jami Miscik said, “he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years,” according to Suskind’s account of the meeting.
As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. “An ocean of hard truths before them – such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want Bush reelected – remained untouched,” Suskind wrote.
If helping Bush was bin Laden’s intent, the strategy appeared to work. According to two last-minute polls, Bush moved from a virtual dead heat with Sen. John Kerry to about a five percentage point lead and hung on to win by an official margin of less than three points. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Agrees Bin Laden Helped in ‘04”]
Intelligence Consensus
In April 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, formalized some of the analysis about the benefit of the Iraq War to Islamic terrorism. The Iraq War had become a “cause celebre” that was “cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement,” the NIE said.
So, Cheney seems to have the intelligence upside down. The ones playing into al-Qaeda’s hands are those who favor an open-ended conflict in Iraq, not those who want to bring the war to a prompt conclusion.
Similarly, Cheney continues to spread the false claim that Zarqawi’s pre-war presence in Iraq indicated an al-Qaeda connection to Saddam Hussein’s regime. “This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq” before the invasion, Cheney told Limbaugh’s listeners.
But the facts on Zarqawi have long since been established. Before the invasion, the Jordanian terrorist – who had not yet allied himself with al-Qaeda – was operating in Iraq’s northern territory where he was protected by the U.S.-British “no-fly zone” that prevented Hussein from launching military offensives.
Though the Bush administration has made much of Zarqawi slipping into Baghdad in 2002 to receive some medical treatment, U.S. intelligence has concluded that Hussein’s government did not know where Zarqawi was and indeed launched a manhunt aimed at arresting him.
“The [Hussein] regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” concluded a CIA report dated Oct. 25, 2005.
A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee said Zarqawi used an alias while getting medical treatment and evaded capture by the Iraq Intelligence Service, which created a “special committee” to track him down.
Further, the Senate panel concluded that “no postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during” the U.S. invasion.
The Senate report found, too, that Hussein’s regime had not developed any operational links to al-Qaeda. As explained by captured Iraqi officials after the invasion, the several contacts between Baghdad and al-Qaeda appeared to have been initiated by al-Qaeda and didn’t lead to any cooperation from Iraq.
Hussein was determined to keep the radical fundamentalist bin Laden at arm’s length, according to these accounts. Senior Iraq Intelligence Service official Faruq Hijazi told American debriefers that he was picked by Hussein to meet with bin Laden in 1995 because Hijazi was secular and unsympathetic to bin Laden’s fundamentalist message.
Hussein also instructed Hijazi “only to listen” and promise nothing. Bin Laden requested permission to open an office in Iraq, to receive Chinese sea mines, and to obtain military training – all of which Hussein rejected, Hijazi said, according to the Senate report.
Other al-Qaeda overtures met similar rebuffs from Hussein who disliked bin Laden, in part, because the Saudi exile had called Hussein an “unbeliever,” according to a senior Iraqi official interviewed after the invasion. Hussein also ordered another al-Qaeda operative, who snuck into Iraq, to be apprehended and expelled.
Even before the U.S.-led invasion – when the Bush administration was hyping Hussein’s alleged ties to al-Qaeda – then-CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “there are several reported suggestions by al-Qa’ida to Iraq about joint terrorist ventures, but in no case can we establish that Iraq accepted or followed up on these suggestions.”
Despite this evidence and a broad consensus within the U.S. intelligence community, Cheney keeps alive his discredited claims about a pre-war al-Qaeda role under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Possibly, the Vice President believes that the right-wing media echo chamber is so influential that the sheer repetition of these falsehoods can solidify support for the administration’s position regardless of the facts.
Bush’s Lies
Bush has operated with similar audacity in depicting a “history” of the Iraq War that is mythical, not factual. For instance, just four months after the invasion, Bush altered the pre-war reality in stating that he had no choice but to invade because Saddam Hussein had barred United Nations weapons inspectors.
“We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in,” Bush said at the end of a brief press conference at the White House on July 14, 2003. “After a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.”
Yet, as everyone who watched the run-up to war knew, Hussein did let U.N. inspectors in to scour the countryside. Indeed, in early March 2003, U.N. inspectors were requesting more time for their work and noting that the Iraqis finally were filling in details about how they had destroyed earlier stockpiles of weapons. But Bush cut the inspections short and launched his invasion.
Then, months later, when U.S. forces also were unable to locate the suspected weapons of mass destruction, Bush simply altered the historical facts with his assertion that Hussein “chose war” by rejecting U.N. inspections.
In those heady days of Bush’s stratospheric poll numbers, no one in the major U.S. news media dared to challenge Bush’s falsehoods.
Although Bush’s poll numbers have fallen precipitously since then, U.S. journalists remain hesitant to question Bush’s honesty now when he continues to revise recent history to fit his political needs.
Bush’s latest revisionist history relates to his claim that his “surge” of higher troop levels in Iraq represented the will of the military commanders and that politicians shouldn’t override battlefield judgments.
The American people “don’t want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war,” Bush said at a press briefing on April 3, scolding congressional Democrats for seeking a gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.
But it was Bush in December and January who rebuffed the judgment of the Pentagon brass and U.S. field commanders when they opposed his plan for expanding the size of the U.S. military contingent in Iraq.
During a classified briefing at the Pentagon in December, Bush reportedly made clear to the brass that he had no interest in finding a way out of Iraq. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, described Bush’s message as “What I want to hear for you is how we’re going to win, not how we’re going to leave.”
Bush began warming to a “surge” strategy that was pushed by neoconservative scholar Frederick Kagan and Bush’s hard-line White House strategists. That was countered by a Pentagon leak revealing that the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed an escalation because they doubted it could achieve any lasting strategic objective.
Bush, who has always insisted that he listens to his generals on military matters such as troop levels, reacted to their resistance to the “surge” with a purge. He pushed out Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, the two top field commanders, and promoted other officers who would bend to White House political demands.
In other words, Bush claiming he was abiding by his commanders’ advice on the “surge” would be like Richard Nixon saying he was only following the will of the Justice Department in firing Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.”
To get Cox fired, Nixon first had to accept the resignations of the Attorney General and the deputy attorney general, before reaching the third-ranking official, Solicitor General Robert Bork, who removed Cox.
But not even Nixon would have dared invert factual reality so brazenly. Nixon had to confront a far more aggressive press corps than Bush does. Plus, Nixon couldn’t turn as readily to an ideologically compliant right-wing news media, which has been lavishly constructed in the past three decades partly in response to Nixon’s Watergate debacle. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
Bush and Cheney apparently believe that today’s friendlier media environment still lets them do or say almost anything they want. But a democratic Republic cannot long endure when leaders substitute lies for truth.
Robert Parry
broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated
Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of
the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his
1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project
Truth.'
source:
http://consortiumnews.com/2007/040607.html
Comments (2)
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written by a guest, April 08, 2007
--What makes George W. Bush and Dick Cheney such extraordinary threats to the future of American democracy is their readiness to tell half-truths and outright lies consistently without any apparent fear of accountability.--
...no personal invective, no demonizing or pseudo-psychologizing of your opponent, etc.
Really? Then why do you allow Robert Parry to conjure up heinous lies deomonizing George Bush and Cheney? Parry's neo-communist propaganda and this outlet's skewing the rules in his favor is far from fair. There was a time when we could look to journalists for honest reporting. These days, perjurers like Parry are the norm.
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George Bush, if not in the caliber of Washington, Lincoln or Jefferson, is one of the most genuine presidents this country has ever had.
Mr. Bush tried (spending close to 500 Billion) to better the condition of people in the middle east and especially the Iraqis.
The suicide bombing in Israel was at its record high when Mr. Bush decided to get rid of the number one cause Mr. Saddam Hussein. No way American Leaders could have let this systematic elimination of Israelis to go on. Unfortunately, in US, they could not easily justify the invasion for the good of Israelis and more important for the good of Middle East itself. And, that is why we had blunders that resulted in grieves such as the Valerie Wilson fiasco, and the Iraqi nuclear bomb hoaxes.....
Saddam and his sons, in their own evil minds, were planning with mere $30,000 dollars payout to the family of a suicide bomber elimination of at least 5 Israelis at a time. To eliminate 5,000 Israelis, they planed $30,000,000 and for eliminating 50,000 Israelis, they planed $300,000,000. That's only $30,000,000 for a man and his two sons who spent more on ugly behaviors, rapes and atrocities in one year. I assure you the figure $300,000,000 was more what he had in mind and planed. Saddam figured majority of Israelis will then leave Israel from the fears of bombing of a suicide bomber. This was the mind of one of the most inhumane persons in the history of the mankind. Most Americans knew about this when Mr. Bush invaded Iraq. But now, how easy it is to forget and let Mr. Bush and his team carry all the blame.
Mr. Bush sacrificed a lot for the good of humanity. He even sacrificed his presidency; at this time, of course, it looks low approval numbers. History will judge that Mr. Bush made the right decision. I guess a good question is why the Iraq rebuilding good for Americans. This country is one the most generous and best countries in the world and should remain that way with great moral superiority. History will show that Americans did sacrifice a lot by getting rid of Saddam, helping and rebuilding Iraq, however, they will regain the moral superiority they deserve.
Many people compare Bush with Clinton. The truth is that the economic policies of Mr. Clinton, in his first two years, did not work (raising taxes). The economy only boomed with the introduction of the Internet. Mr. Clinton was so very lucky that the introduction of the Internet fell in his presidency and of course saved his presidency. If the Internet was introduced last year, Mr. Bush would have gained the same fame.
Introduction of several corporate legislations by Senator Dodd synergistic with many young companies that grew around the Internet allowed stock market to sky rocket from 3000 to 12000 generated tremendous revenues for the Government as revenue of taxes on stock gains. Some of these legislations were ill conceived and in part they were the cause of Enron, WorldCom and even AOL fiascos. Of course Clinton is the master of politics and giving unique speeches but the truth is that Mr. Bush has the guts to take action to save innocent lives; and, to me the latter is more important.
Did Iraq rebuilding plan really work? The answer is not yet clear. Yes, 600,000 Iraqis are dead. This is the most disappointing and horrific truth. Sadness takes all over me when I even think about this horrific number. But, the way to resolve this enigma is not by arguing against what Americans and especially Mr. Bush and his team tried to accomplish with good intentions. It is for the Iraqis to ponder why suicide bombing even existed. Why? Where does it originate from? Did anyone, and especially Mr. Bush ever imagined what disaster can suicide bombing bring about; 600,000 dead? I strongly believe if suicide bombing succeed in Iraq and we leave, it will next move to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt,.....there is no limit. It is for Saudis to ponder what to do now as long as it's not too late. I suggest the Saudi Clergies offer twice that amount (say $60,000) to the family of a potential suicide bomber and ask the potential bomber to divulge the source. Of course this sounds like madness, but I read somewhere you fight madness with madness.
I argue that Middle East is infected by an ideological virus. The virus that makes one group hate another for reasons that lie in the events of 1400 years ago after profit Mohammad died without leaving a clear leader (Moslem Sunni hating Muslim Shia and Muslim Shia hating Moslem Sunni). Is Mr. Bush responsible for this 1400-year-old virus? Sad, but people in middle east and perhaps even Israelis are inoculated with this, sometimes dormant, Virus.
What should Mr. Bush do?
I guess a better question is what should Mr. Bush and his team have done and didn't do. Mr. Bush should have stimulated an intellectual activity about the mind of a suicide bomber. Unfortunately, people around Mr. Bush did not do much but to change the name from a "Suicide Bomber" to a "Homicide Bomber". Nothing else; as if changing the name will now resolve it or like the contemporary TV shows they will now be banned from our lives because they have bad name. WOW!
In my college time, I used to read the Forbes Magazine when Ronald Reagan was our president. Mr. Reagan used to write himself in the commentary section of Forbes magazine with great intellectual prowess. Yes, it was his own writing. Mr. Reagan was very instrumental in the conservative movement by bringing intellectual minds such as William Buckley and others into the political scene very effectively. It worked.
When Colin Powell went to United Nations to justify the Iraqi Invasion, every one was looking for Adlai Stevenson like performance in the Cuban Missile Crisis Debate of 1962. I was hopping that Mr. Powell carry a suicide bomber to the United Nations (he could have borrowed one from an Israeli Prison) and show the world the mind of a suicide bomber and why it was so important to put a stop to it. Mr. Bush should have stimulated more intellectual activity around the religion of Islam. What is an intellectual Shia? What is an intellectual Sunni and why they don't get along and how it might affect us in the long run.
The next good questions are who are the influential Iraqis before the invasion and where did they go after the invasion? I am not talking about those (like Ahmad Chalabi) who were outside Iraq and could not wait to get back in. I am talking about those who were inside Iraq with Saddam before the invasion. I am sure they did not stay in Iraq waiting for us to invade. They left long before. Where did they go? How instrumental are they now in the events inside Iraq? Do they pay for the current suicide bombing in Iraq? Most probably, just like those who could not wait to get back in before the invasion, they also can not wait to get back in now.
Mr. Bush, it is not too late to ask these questions and find solutions.
In my opinion, American Presidents who were intellectuals, and I mean true intrinsic intellectual, were the best presidents. Ronald Reagan was a true intellectual and most important he had an intrinsic intellectual desires to learn and contribute. Mr. Clinton was also an intellectual. Before he got elected, somewhere in Wall Street Journal I read that he had read close to 5000 books. However, I now doubt that his intellectual pursuits were truly intrinsic. The more I get to know Mr. Clinton, the more I believe he used his intellect or he polished his intellect to get beautiful women. If you ask Hillary, that's how he got her; this was in the library of Yale University. But why should we care? Mr. Clinton intellectual qualities truly helped this country when they were called for. And, that was in Bosnia, economy, and the welfare reform.
Who should Americans elect as our next president?
We should look to see who is more intellectual. Who has read most. Who has the most intrinsic intellectual desires and not extrinsic to get women or other wrong motivations. Young people and especially college kids are great in recognizing intellectual leaders. After all they are in their intellectual pursuits. Mr. Obama at this time seems the most intellectual. I, however, like to ask you to also question the source of this intellectual pursuit. Is it intrinsic or extrinsic? I am not saying Mr. Obama has extrinsic motivations. I like to know more about his intrinsic motivations. Ronald Reagan intrinsic motivations shaped when he was actually a Democrat and I hear he was also motivated by the intellectual powers of John F. Kennedy. What is Obama's?