WiiLoaded.com - Wii Forum and News

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
ADVERTISEMENT

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 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 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-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, 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 H. 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-Qaida, 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-Qaida.

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.

source

The article didn't tell me anything I didn't really know, but I'm glad that it's being put in mainstream press. How many times can these politicians go on television and lie, and then the next day say something to the effect of "I never said that" ?

We get it, the war may have been wrong.

The main thing is the bad guy got what was coming to him (Saddam) imo. Now, finish the game of hide 'n' go seek with Osama.

yeah, but the real issue w/ iraq is that we've destabilized it like crazy and destroyed much of their infrastructure, not to mention killed over 100,000 iraqis even by conservative estimates. cities like baghdad and falujah were modern cities that depended upon sewage, running water, electricity and modern communications. now we have hundreds of thousands of urban iraqis w/o access to shelter, clothing, electricity, food and medical care. in saddam's days you only had to fear oppression if you were a political dissident or a kurd, now all iraqi's have to fear our oppression. i hope they become a country of freedom and prosperity, but given that we are propping up their gov't and we no longer stand for personal liberties even internally, i have my doubts.

QFT!
I would try to add something but you summed up everything I had to say.
I wonder if this will get shown on FOX News.... Not a chance.

In other words, they where better off with Saddam.

So who are the "bad" guys?

I'm pretty sure the Iraqis view us as the bad guys.
To them, their society was normal. To us it wasn't, what gives us the right to tell them they're wrong? The laws in one country aren't the same as another. Who's to say who's laws are better?

And ya, everyone already knew that, except the gullible ones with easily bended opinions.
I'm amazed it was made official though.

yep. although we took them away from Saddam, we have and still are destroying them. we're killing them and not caring who gets injured, and frankly its disgusting to know how terrible we're making it over there. i've lost track of what we're fighting for again...this "war on terror" seems to encompass anything and everything, and each time i read the news theres a new excuse. if we ever pull out, they're gonna be devastated over there, most likely unable to stand on their own against anything. we've overrun them to death...

but normal to any middle eastern society today is pretty primitive. i mean hell, a women gets raped and beat by a bunch of thugs, and SHE gets jail time?

I bet the Iraqi women are glad we're over there.

think stories like his will keep the dems momentum going through november?

still a lot bush apoligists around and their vote still counts the same as mine

Well, now that we're in, we can't pull out or it'd end up even worse than how it started.
twss

I don't regret anything though. Saddam was killing his people, I would have invaded too if I were president.

What right does one country have with another's ethics?
If they had a problem with how they lived they'd have revolted, started a revolution.
Other countries have done it too, its not like this type of thing never happened before. France, Russia, Poland, the U.S.A, they've all done it.
The thing is, the people who lived there started the revolution, then asked for help from outside sources (or did it themselves).
The U.S. rushed something the Iraqiis wheren't ready for. Their current position is proof of that.

A president's job is to do the best for his country. Next to that is allied countrys. Sending military support to a country who didn't want it is not helping them, them getting killed is lowering our defenses. Spending billions of dollars to find W.O.M.D. that don't exist is simply wasting money, which lowers the amercian dollar value (Which I'm not complainign about, yay CND Dollars!)

Exactly, its normal to them, they don't have a problem with it, if they did... *scroll back to top of post* or they'd have immigrated. Canada accepts 70% of all refugees. They could have easily come here.

That's also pretty funny.. the US is so keen to help the helpless Iraquiis, yet they probably accept maybe 100 refugees a year, while kill 10 of them a week in Iraq.

so what you're saying is that you think that we can provide stability and leadership better than the iraqis can themselves? that itself was an argument used in britain during the american revolution to justify raising taxes to continue fighting against the revolution. even most british leaders realized that the colonies would someday become independent of britain, they just thought/hoped it would be at a later date. thomas paine himself wrote several times in commonsense and his american crisis series of pamphlets on the absurdity of a small nation ruling a large continent thousands of miles away. is it any less absurd for a large continent to rule a much smaller nation halfway across the globe?

yes, he did kill alot of kurds... with chemical weapons he received from the US. and this sympathizing w/ the kurds for their plight is all well and good, but perhaps we should have done that, oh i don't know... maybe when they were being killed in mass quantities over a decade ago.

and i don't doubt that if you were president that you would have invaded. but unfortunately that is not the job of the president or the gov't as a whole. i seem to remember some old document stating that the gov't exists to 'provide for the common defense' and not to 'provide for the common preemptive strike' or 'provide for the common invasion of sovereign nations' or 'provide for the common liberation of other nations.' oh... that's right, that was the US constitution... the supposed basis of our gov't. this is the problem of the democrats and republicans in office... they pay lip service to the document, but don't pay attention to what it actually says. at the very least they could be honest about their discontent w/ it and change it by amendment to make their actions constitutional.

I thought we took out their leadership and implemented our own? If we pull out wouldn't it be like telling them to fix a problem we started?

Better late than never..?

It really isn't the job of the president, yeah, but obviously he was backed on his decision if we're in Iraq now. He got the necessary 'go ahead' to head into Iraq, and we have to finish what we started.

[edit]

You shouldn't be debating with me, you'd only be wasting your time. I know nothing of the war, and I'm pretty much basing all of my opinions off of my own moral values.

meh to bush

he'll be gone soon enough, better late than never

i know you don't want us to debate your statements, but it seems to me that your statements reflect the apathetic and illogical stance of many americans. i don't question your morals, only your knowledge about and view of the situation.

are there no other iraqis capable of leadership? were all of their competant, compassionate, charismatic and just people amongst the over 100,000 iraqi's killed? i find it hard to accept this as a valid argument.

we're doing a good job of fixing that problem that we created, aren't we? we're more busy building military bases and corporate buildings than rebuilding their homes, schools, hospitals, offices and mosques that were destroyed.

and you are right, he did have the support of congress, both republicans and democrats. which is exactly why i decried the unconstitutional actions taken by both parties in my previous post. the american people should be rioting in the streets if our gov't ever again fights a war w/o declaring it. you'd think we'd have learned after korea, vietnam, panama, the dominican republic and now iraq. as edward abbey once stated, 'a true patriot will defend his country against his government.'

Well I guess you can debate my views, it's an oppurtunity for me to be educated by someone who knows. I think...

I don't doubt that there are Iraqi's capable of leadership, but it's like taking away our government and then relying on the people of America to unify this country. I just see it as a very difficulut task, but not impossible.

We destroyed those facilities?

just in case i came off as putting you down, i didn't mean it that way. most americans (and i assume you are one of them) are fairly morally sound, but are largely uneducated due to our corporate media (not b/c of some great conspiracy by the media, but rather b/c of the media's self interests) . i just read alot of news sites from many viewpoints and other nations.

we destroyed alot of their buildings by accident. i remember reading in a dept. of defense interview that over 80% of the cruise missiles we launched prior to the main invasion missed their mark.

my advice if you wish to learn more about what's going on nationally and in the world is to read a wide variety of views on them. also take into account what self interests the reporter might have in the story. it also helps to read into the historical contexts of these events. i personally find that classic liberal (i.e. libertarian and anarchist) and scientific news sites are very easy to get news from b/c it is rather easy to distinguish the irrational kooks from the truly rational and pertinent writers. you may not agree with their ideologies, but the writers on such sites that are rational are absolutely in love w/ freedom of information and factual evidence. lastly, while it is fine to have your own philosophical or emotional view of an event, never take anyone else's philosophical or emotional descriptions of an event too seriously... you're prolly bright enough to have your own even if it is generally the same view.