Apropos of nothing, I was thinking about the nationally-televised press conference Bush held on March 6, 2003, in which he effectively laid out exactly what he believed, at the time, about the Iraqi threat and the need for war. If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d recommend reading it, just for kicks. Going over the transcript, it’s hard to find a single thing Bush got right.
* Bush emphasized the need for Saddam Hussein to “disarm” — that is, give up the WMD that he didn’t actually have — 48 times. The whole press conference only lasted 52 minutes, so he almost averaged a once-per-minute reference.
* Bush spoke with absolute certainty about WMD and an imminent threat that didn’t exist.
“Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied…. Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people…. [T]he American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”
* Bush repeatedly connected Hussein’s regime to al Queda.
[Iraq is] a country that trains terrorists, a country that could arm terrorists. And our fellow Americans must understand in this new war against terror, that we not only must chase down al Qaeda terrorists, we must deal with weapons of mass destruction, as well…. [W]e must cut off money together; we must smoke these al Qaeda types out one at a time. It’s in our national interest, as well, that we deal with Saddam Hussein…. [Hussein] has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations…. We love freedom and we’re not changing. And, therefore, so long as there’s a terrorist network like al Qaeda, and others willing to fund them, finance them, equip them — we’re at war.
* And, of course, Bush did his absolute best to connect Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.
Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. September the 11th changed the strategic thinking, at least, as far as I was concerned, for how to protect our country. My job is to protect the American people. It used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protect us from his type of terror. September the 11th should say to the American people that we’re now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home.
I’m not cherry-picking the worst quotes or taking anything out of context; this is just what Bush said. Every word of it turned out to be wrong. Terribly, tragically wrong.
And yet, Bush’s new campaign theme is “results matter.” The mind reels.