Study: False statements preceded war

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. Full Story »

Posted by Julia Willebrand

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CJ Sovada
2.4
by CJ Sovada - Oct. 1, 2008

Did the authors of the study look at the speeches, briefings, interviews of the Clinton administration? I'm sure that they said some of the same things that the Bush administration did. Just like Mr. Stenzel says, "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world." The Intelligence community did not just gin that Iraq had a WMD program after 9/11, if you will remember we were pretty much at war with Iraq from 1991 until the invasion in 2003 due to Saddam's brinkmanship with the UN weapons inspectors The Bush administration was not the first to advocate regime change in Iraq, on Dec 19, 1999, President Clinton in a radio address, announced that the policy of the U.S. government was to replace Saddam Hussein's regime. I guess that some of the intelligence that President Clinton used to make his decision in 1999 was some of the same intelligence that President Bush used in 2003. Sure, the intelligence community got it wrong. Lately, they have gotten a lot of stuff wrong. But, in their defense, budget cuts from both sides of the aisle forced the intelligence community to make cuts since the 1970s. When you cut people and programs that are supposed to provide indications and warning to the President and military to defend the country...I guess you get what you pay for. This biased study only has half of the false statements that it should -- it is missing those from the Clinton administration.

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CJ's Rating

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2.4

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2.5
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1.0
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