The most frustrating part of watching Bush last night wasn’t his tendency to roll his eyes, or his smirk, or his over-reliance on talking points. It was his inclination to say things that just aren’t true. It started early and never let up.
Whopper #1:
“We pursued al Qaeda wherever al Qaeda tries to hide. Seventy-five percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice.”
Bush repeated this twice, but he completely made up the number. The White House had been saying for a while that “two-thirds” of al Queda’s leaders had been taken out, but Bush has decided to just boost the number to 75 percent because he feels like it, not because it’s rooted in any kind of fact.
White House and U.S. intelligence officials declined to provide any back-up data for how they developed the new number — or even to explain the methodology that was used, which they said was classified. The absence of any explanation, as well as the timing, prompted some counterterrorism experts to deride the figure as “meaningless” and predict the revision could fuel allegations that the administration is massaging terrorism data for political purposes….
An official with the recently disbanded 9/11 commission also dismissed the new number, noting that it was impossible to get a firm handle on precisely the number of Al Qaeda “leaders” that were in place at the time of the September 11 attacks — the definition that the CIA says it used as its baseline for the estimate.
“It was meaningless when they said two thirds and it’s meaningless when they said three fourths,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “This sounds like it was pulled out of somebody’s orifice.”
Whopper #2:
“[T]he best way for Iraq to be safe and secure is for Iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job. And that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got 100,000 trained now.”
No, we don’t. Only 53,000 have received some training and only a little over 8,000 Iraqis have received full training.
Whopper #3:
“The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice.”
No, it hasn’t. Bush signed off on a deal in which Khan was slapped on the wrist by Pakistani officials and is now a free man. As for Khan’s network, none of Khan’s cohorts has been charged with a crime.
Whopper #4:
“Ten million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan in the upcoming presidential election….. It’s a phenomenal statistic.”
It may be phenomenal, but it certainly isn’t something to boast about — Afghanistan only has 9.8 million eligible voters. The fact that 10 million have registered is a sign of voter fraud, not a blossoming democracy.
Whopper #5:
“Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming.”
Saddam Hussein didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. It’s hard to disarm when you have nothing to disarm.
Whopper #6:
“My opponent at one time said, ‘Well, get me elected, I’ll have them out of there in six months.'”
No, he didn’t. Two weeks ago, in the speech Bush appears to be referring to, Kerry said:
“If the President would move in this direction … if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and forces … train the Iraqis to provide their own security …develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people … and take the steps necessary to hold credible elections next year … we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years.”
Bush’s characterization wasn’t even close to being accurate.
Update: I almost forgot Whopper #7:
“We’ll be implementing a missile-defense system relatively quickly.”
This is one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me kind of claims.
[T]he Missile-Defense Agency has delayed — for the second time in two months and now until at least the end of the year — a crucial flight test of the interceptor.
The pathetic fact is, the interceptor isn’t ready for a test. Glitches discovered from the last test still haven’t been fixed. The test crews are stumped by the cause, so they’ve sent it back to the factory to see if someone there can find a solution.
Plus:
Several key components have fallen years behind schedule and will not be available until later. Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of “relatively quickly” is.