[Dialogue] Study: Bush Led US To War on 'False Pretenses'

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 by Associated Press
<http://www.ap.org>  

Study: Bush Led US To War on 'False Pretenses'

by Douglass K. Daniel

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush
and top administration officials issued hundreds of false
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/>  statements about the national
security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist
attacks.
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Images/Charts/WarCardChart.jpg>
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Images/Charts/WarCardChart.jpg> 0123
10 1 2 3
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Images/Charts/WarCardChart.jpg> 

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated
campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led
the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study <http://www.publicintegrity.org/>  was posted Tuesday on the Web
site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for
Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the
study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the
world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of
intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The Center for Public Integrity, a research group that focuses on ethics in
government and public policy, designed the new Web site to allow simple
searches for specific phrases, such as "mushroom cloud" or "yellowcake
uranium," in transcripts and documents totaling some 380,000 words,
including remarks by President Bush and most of his top advisers in the two
years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that
in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration
officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them, or had
links to al Qaeda, or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass
destruction or have meaningful ties to al Qaeda," according to Charles Lewis
and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, writing
an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation
to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated
and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration
during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security
adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of
State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House
press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al Qaeda, the study found. That was second
only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al Qaeda.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public
statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information
from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and
interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements - amplified by thousands of
news stories and broadcasts - was massive, with the media coverage creating
an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to
war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists - indeed, even some entire news organizations - have since
acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too
deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the
wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of
the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the
documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is
remarkable for its scope and its replay of the crescendo of statements that
led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what
Richard Nixon used to dismissively call "wallowing in Watergate."

Online resources
Center for Public Integrity:
www.publicintegrity.org

Fund for Independence in Journalism:
www.tfij.org/

The New York Times contributed to this report.

C 2008 Associated Press

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/23/6551/

 

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