Let’s skip right to the chase: Bush’s lies about Niger-gate are not only getting more common, they’re getting more outrageous.
Yesterday, Bush told reporters some of the most demonstrably false claims yet about Iraq, Niger-gate, and what he knew about the veracity of his own remarks in the State of the Union.
First, Bush claimed that intelligence officials raised concerns about the reliability of the Niger documents after his January speech.
“The thing that’s important to realize is that we’re constantly gathering data,” Bush said. “Subsequent to the speech, the CIA had some doubts. But when they talked about the speech and when they looked at the speech, it was cleared. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have put it in the speech.”
I’m assuming Bush knows what “subsequent” means; it means coming after, following in time.
How could he say with a straight face that the CIA had doubts about the Niger claim “subsequent” to the SOTU? Has he not seen any newspapers lately?
The Niger documents were debunked about a year before his speech, and as recently as October, the CIA urged the White House not to use the claim. Condoleezza Rice has acknowledged that there were significant questions about this claim before Bush gave his address to the nation.
Has Bush any appreciation for the fact that there’s a burgeoning political crisis unfolding because the CIA “had some doubts” before his speech? I’ve never had any respect for Bush’s intellect, but surely he has some kind of appreciation for what’s going on around him. I don’t know what would lead him to believe he can lie with such abandon, but he’s doing it anyway.
As bad as this was, Bush added insult to injury with this whopper: “The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region.”
Wait a minute. Did Bush say we gave Hussein “a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in”? Huh?
Bush is apparently hoping that we don’t remember the fact that UNMOVIC inspectors were allowed in and searched suspected Iraqi weapons sites before our invasion began. At Bush’s urging, the United Nations passed Resolution 1441, which sent in teams of inspectors to Iraq. The inspectors’ original reports, you might recall, were that there were no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. Bush didn’t care for that answer, so we started a war.
This isn’t one of those examples when one could argue that Bush is simply misinformed. In other words, the whole Bush is a liar vs. Bush is a moron debate won’t work here. Hussein allowed U.N. inspectors in, yet Bush said the opposite was true.
These aren’t near-truths or technically accurate claims; they’re bold and intentional falsehoods for which there is no defense. Either Bush is so clueless about his surroundings that he has the mental capacity of a small child or he is lying.
If Bush’s sycophants sincerely want to argue that these aren’t lies because Bush doesn’t really know what the truth is, then we are in desperate need of a new president. No one this dumb should hold a position of this much power.