Selling and Reselling the Iraq War
October 11th 2007 04:47
During President George W. Bush’s September 12, 2002 address to the UN General Assembly he declared, “With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September the 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors.” By mentioning Iraq in one sentence and the attacks on September 11 in the next, Bush implied Iraq had something to do with attacks.
During his UN address Bush made several misleading statements concerning Iraq’s capability to produce nuclear weapons. He claimed that if Iraq acquired “fissure material” it would have the ability to “build a nuclear weapon within a year.” The intelligence community believed Iraq would not have the capability to build a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, yet Bush continued to make statements about Iraq’s nuclear capability.
Bush insisted that Iraq “made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.” The aluminum tubes were allegedly purchased in Niger. Joseph Wilson, former ambassador to Iraq and Gabon, made a trip to Niger to confirm the allegations. He wrote an editorial for the New York Times about his experience and what he discovered. During the trip he met “people associated with the country's uranium business” and concluded that “Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq.”
According to Wilson, Niger’s uranium business “consists of two mines…run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests.” For the government of Niger to remove uranium they would have had to “notify the consortium” which is monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.” There is “simply too much oversight over too small anindustry for a sale to have transpired.”
A few weeks after the UN address Bush spoke to Congressional leaders, telling them the “Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.” Two days later Bush repeated the same statement in his weekly radio address. The month of October 2002 Bush made numerous statements about Iraq possessing biological and chemical weapons. The intelligence community only produced estimates. George Tenet, then the Director of Central Intelligence stated, “It is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof.” The Defense Intelligence Agency took the position that “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.”
During his September 28, 2002 radio address Bush linked Hussein’s regime with al-Qaeda: “The regime has longstanding and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq.” The intelligence community did not have definitive evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked.
Administration officials follow suit
Cheney made numerous remarks about Iraq during the summer of 2002. On August 26, 2002 he said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” He insisted on September 8, 2002 that, “first of all, no decision's been made yet to launch a military operation.” A month later he stated, “the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency…It has developed weapons of mass death.”
In August 2002 the White House Iraq Group was formed by Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Jr. in what The Constitution in Crisis, a report compiled by Rep. John Conyers, then the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee and now the Chairman, called, “an apparent effort to bolster public support for war with Iraq.”
An August 2003 Washington Post article characterized WHIG as “an internal working group…to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.” A senior official talked to the Post for the article. According to the Post senior White House officials like Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former disgraced chief of staff regularly participated in WHIG. Sources told the Post a “strategic communications task force under WHIG” planned speeches and papers.
Colin Powell, the secretary of state at the time, made similar remarks on September 19, 2002 , “Of course, the President has not decided on a military option ...nobody wants war as a first resort…nobody is looking for a war if it can be avoided.”
Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also made many misleading statements about Iraq’s WMD capability and Hussein’s link to al-Qaeda. “Well, there's no question but that Iraq has relationships with countries that are on the terrorist list…They also have al Qaeda currently in the country,” he told the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2002. He also said to the Committee, “But I can say obviously that they have had an enormous appetite for weapons, biological and chemical weapons. They've taken these capabilities and weaponized them. They are continuing to do so today.”
On the PBS show Lehrer News Hour in May 2002 Rumsfeld stated that Iraq had a “very aggressive” program to “develop nuclear weapons.” Rumsfeld appeared on the CBS show Face the Nation in May 2002 and stated, “The problem with that is the way one gains absolutely certainty as to whether a dictator like Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons is if he uses it, and that's a little late.”
Then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice appeared on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer in September 8, 2002 and declared that Hussein had the infrastructure and nuclear scientists “to make a nuclear weapon,” and was “actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.” Rice mentioned the alleged aluminum tubes from Niger, and went on to make the statement, “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Rice appeared on Fox News Channel’s Fox News Sunday program a few days later, and declared that Hussein had “links to terrorism…including al-Qaeda.”
Reselling the Iraq War
This summer neo-conservatives formed a group named Freedom’s Watch (FW) to try to rival the progressive group MoveOn.org. The group was created by prominent neo-conservatives from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) in order to propagate support for Iraq. On August 22 FW released a press release announcing it will “spend approximately $15 million on radio and television ads…aimed at ensuring Congress continues to fully fund the troops with the ultimate goal of victory in the War on Terror.”
FW President Bradely Blakeman said, “The mission of Freedom’s Watch is to ensure a strong national defense and a powerful effort to confront and defeat global terror, especially in Iraq.” He went on to say, “Those who want to quit while victory is possible have dominated the public debate about terror and Iraq since the 2004 election. Freedom’s Watch is going to change that.”
Former White House press secretary and FW cofounder, Ari Fleischer describes FW as “Ideologically inspired by much of Ronald Reagan's thinking: peace through strength, protect and defend America, and prosperity through free enterprise.”
The list of FW’s important members reads almost as a ‘who’s who’ of influential neo-conservatives. The inner sanctums of the group are people close to Vice-President Dick Cheney or past Bush administration employees. Blakeman served as President George W. Bush’s former deputy assistant. He joined the Gordon C. James Public Relations firm in May 2006 as a senior advisor in its Washington, D.C. office. According to the firm’s press release, Blakeman “served as… senior coordinator for logistics for the Bush-Cheney recount in Florida, and senior lead advance representative for the Bush-Cheney 2000 election.”
The August 22 press release listed among its “supporters”: Anthony Gioia, Kevin Moley, Mel Sembler, and Howard Leach. Gioia, Moley, Sembler, and Leach served as ambassadors for Bush. Gioia served as ambassador to Malta from 2001 to 2004. Moley served as Bush’s ambassador to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva until 2005. Moley also served various positions in former President George H.W. Bush’s administration, including vice chairman of the President’s Council on Management Improvement. Sembler served as ambassador to Italy from 2001 to 2005. His website states that he is a “financial supporter of the Bush clan.” Leach served as the ambassador to France from 2001 to 2005.
During his UN address Bush made several misleading statements concerning Iraq’s capability to produce nuclear weapons. He claimed that if Iraq acquired “fissure material” it would have the ability to “build a nuclear weapon within a year.” The intelligence community believed Iraq would not have the capability to build a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, yet Bush continued to make statements about Iraq’s nuclear capability.
Bush insisted that Iraq “made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.” The aluminum tubes were allegedly purchased in Niger. Joseph Wilson, former ambassador to Iraq and Gabon, made a trip to Niger to confirm the allegations. He wrote an editorial for the New York Times about his experience and what he discovered. During the trip he met “people associated with the country's uranium business” and concluded that “Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq.”
According to Wilson, Niger’s uranium business “consists of two mines…run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests.” For the government of Niger to remove uranium they would have had to “notify the consortium” which is monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.” There is “simply too much oversight over too small anindustry for a sale to have transpired.”
A few weeks after the UN address Bush spoke to Congressional leaders, telling them the “Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.” Two days later Bush repeated the same statement in his weekly radio address. The month of October 2002 Bush made numerous statements about Iraq possessing biological and chemical weapons. The intelligence community only produced estimates. George Tenet, then the Director of Central Intelligence stated, “It is important to underline the word estimate. Because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof.” The Defense Intelligence Agency took the position that “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.”
During his September 28, 2002 radio address Bush linked Hussein’s regime with al-Qaeda: “The regime has longstanding and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq.” The intelligence community did not have definitive evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked.
Administration officials follow suit
Cheney made numerous remarks about Iraq during the summer of 2002. On August 26, 2002 he said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” He insisted on September 8, 2002 that, “first of all, no decision's been made yet to launch a military operation.” A month later he stated, “the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency…It has developed weapons of mass death.”
In August 2002 the White House Iraq Group was formed by Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Jr. in what The Constitution in Crisis, a report compiled by Rep. John Conyers, then the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee and now the Chairman, called, “an apparent effort to bolster public support for war with Iraq.”
An August 2003 Washington Post article characterized WHIG as “an internal working group…to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.” A senior official talked to the Post for the article. According to the Post senior White House officials like Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former disgraced chief of staff regularly participated in WHIG. Sources told the Post a “strategic communications task force under WHIG” planned speeches and papers.
Colin Powell, the secretary of state at the time, made similar remarks on September 19, 2002 , “Of course, the President has not decided on a military option ...nobody wants war as a first resort…nobody is looking for a war if it can be avoided.”
Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also made many misleading statements about Iraq’s WMD capability and Hussein’s link to al-Qaeda. “Well, there's no question but that Iraq has relationships with countries that are on the terrorist list…They also have al Qaeda currently in the country,” he told the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2002. He also said to the Committee, “But I can say obviously that they have had an enormous appetite for weapons, biological and chemical weapons. They've taken these capabilities and weaponized them. They are continuing to do so today.”
On the PBS show Lehrer News Hour in May 2002 Rumsfeld stated that Iraq had a “very aggressive” program to “develop nuclear weapons.” Rumsfeld appeared on the CBS show Face the Nation in May 2002 and stated, “The problem with that is the way one gains absolutely certainty as to whether a dictator like Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons is if he uses it, and that's a little late.”
Then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice appeared on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer in September 8, 2002 and declared that Hussein had the infrastructure and nuclear scientists “to make a nuclear weapon,” and was “actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.” Rice mentioned the alleged aluminum tubes from Niger, and went on to make the statement, “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Rice appeared on Fox News Channel’s Fox News Sunday program a few days later, and declared that Hussein had “links to terrorism…including al-Qaeda.”
Reselling the Iraq War
This summer neo-conservatives formed a group named Freedom’s Watch (FW) to try to rival the progressive group MoveOn.org. The group was created by prominent neo-conservatives from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) in order to propagate support for Iraq. On August 22 FW released a press release announcing it will “spend approximately $15 million on radio and television ads…aimed at ensuring Congress continues to fully fund the troops with the ultimate goal of victory in the War on Terror.”
FW President Bradely Blakeman said, “The mission of Freedom’s Watch is to ensure a strong national defense and a powerful effort to confront and defeat global terror, especially in Iraq.” He went on to say, “Those who want to quit while victory is possible have dominated the public debate about terror and Iraq since the 2004 election. Freedom’s Watch is going to change that.”
Former White House press secretary and FW cofounder, Ari Fleischer describes FW as “Ideologically inspired by much of Ronald Reagan's thinking: peace through strength, protect and defend America, and prosperity through free enterprise.”
The list of FW’s important members reads almost as a ‘who’s who’ of influential neo-conservatives. The inner sanctums of the group are people close to Vice-President Dick Cheney or past Bush administration employees. Blakeman served as President George W. Bush’s former deputy assistant. He joined the Gordon C. James Public Relations firm in May 2006 as a senior advisor in its Washington, D.C. office. According to the firm’s press release, Blakeman “served as… senior coordinator for logistics for the Bush-Cheney recount in Florida, and senior lead advance representative for the Bush-Cheney 2000 election.”
The August 22 press release listed among its “supporters”: Anthony Gioia, Kevin Moley, Mel Sembler, and Howard Leach. Gioia, Moley, Sembler, and Leach served as ambassadors for Bush. Gioia served as ambassador to Malta from 2001 to 2004. Moley served as Bush’s ambassador to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva until 2005. Moley also served various positions in former President George H.W. Bush’s administration, including vice chairman of the President’s Council on Management Improvement. Sembler served as ambassador to Italy from 2001 to 2005. His website states that he is a “financial supporter of the Bush clan.” Leach served as the ambassador to France from 2001 to 2005.
Prewar meeting
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