"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington DC, during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence," Bush told ABC. Full Story »
Posted by Chris Finnie
This appears to be based on an ABC News public relations release and disseminated as a favor by Agence France-Presse on behalf of one of its network clients. See the link to one by Reuters, another client, and compare how similar the versions are--as if based on the same news release. You'll essentially get the same brief, non-fact-checked stories by other outlets as a courtesy to ABC News to help build an audience for the interview, where more rigorous questions and answers with fact support should be presented. Wire services also as a courtesy usually allow the originating news outlet to write a greater in-depth story, such as you will find in the link below.
This is the business of news as much as it is the news business. Wire services don't have advertisers; they have subscribers like ABC News. Promotions aside, it is often a journalism tradition to give the source of controversy or criticism a chance to present his or her side, letting those quotations--however seemingly spinworthy--speak for themselves. The assumption--and journalists should never make them--is the audience knows better (which they might in this case).
But Bush, speaking to ABC television, refused to say whether he would have ordered the March 2003 invasion if he had known that Saddam Hussein did ... More »
An utter failure of journalism in my humble opinion. This story simply repeats an interview without context or verification. Despite many well-publicized reports that the White House controlled and cherry-picked the intelligence they were given, this one-sided piece simply lets Bush get away with somehow blaming the intelligence services he chose to ignore. This isn't reporting. It's repeating.
This is factual in that I'm sure it accurately reports what Bush said, but it's sheer lazy journalism not to even bring up another point of view. Especially when it is so well documented already. .
Everyone deserves the chance to tell his or her side of their story. And that’s what this article does—gives Bush a forum to present his version about what happened, no matter how biased we may think it to be. Based on this criterion, therefore, I rated the article higher than I normally would. After all, Bush considers what he said about his actions to be a fair accounting—informative, contextual, and well-sourced—using himself as a source. He was president, after all.
There are Bush supporters who think this article is bang-on, giving him his chance to rebut all the unfair, unwarranted, prejudiced condemnations of someone who advanced ultra conservatism and kept America safe from terrorism. That Iraq was an invasion for the control of its oil, and the deregulation of Wall Street directly led to the crisis are issues he simply is unable to acknowledge.
Astonishing piece of rubbish! G W Bush is a chronic liar about the role of US intelligence in the run-up to war. The CIA was well aware Saddam Hussein did not have WMD. Cheney's gang kept this information concealed. Bush was a stooge of the warmongers.
Bush is an astounding ignoramus and beyond pathetic in his effort to cover up the knowing use of intentionally falsified intelligence to set up an illegal war.
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