Bush – guilty of lying?

Bush came out today, Veteran's day, accusing Americans against the war in Iraq of revisionist history. He wants you to think they are traitors for undermining the war on terror, but that dog won't hunt anymore so he's trying to be lawyerly. Let's examine his claims.

According to Bush, the administration didn't lie because everybody thought Saddam Hussein had WMD. It must cause heartburn to even the most loyal right wingers to cite their supposed agreement with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and worst of all, the French. Going to war should be akin to a criminal, not a civil suit: guilt must be beyond reasonable doubt and not just the preponderance of the evidence and certainly not simple opinion. Unlike similar historical situations, we had weapons inspectors in Iraq who could examine any site suspected of WMD. They could have provided definitive evidence. It always mystified me that the sites featured in Colin Powell's UN presentation weren't simply visited by the inspectors. The inspectors never found any, which would give pause to any reasonable person. But lying is worse than not knowing the truth. The evidence of lying comes from Richard Clarke and others, who consistently reported that Bush was committed to war against Iraq and built the case through any means available. You may remember that Rumsfeld thought Afghanistan didn't offer enough good targets - one more administration reason for going to war against Iraq.

The administration did not lie only about WMD. Cheney and others continued in public speeches to link Iraq to al Qaeda and 9/11 long after the connections were disproved. That's not just lying, that's shameless lying. And shame on us for not demanding Cheney admit or at least correct these lies.

The vote in Congress before the war was to authorize the use of force, NOT to go to war. Full disclosure: I attended a rally against the war and wrote my representatives to vote "no" on the authorization. I did not trust this administration. However, I am sympathetic to my opponents' views that voting against the authorization would have invalidated American threats against Saddam. In that respect, the vote was a no-win situation that more foresighted opponents of the war should have avoided. Indeed, the vote was superfluous because the President has a Constitutional right to send troops into battle. The war powers act only limited the time the President can wait before asking Congress for approval. I can only imagine that Democrats are not clarifying their votes were for authorization, not war, because they are afraid of being accused of duplicity. Is this really so difficult?

Rather than arguing with fellow Americans about what happened, this administration should be putting every effort into winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. But can these inveterate liars change their stripes? Maybe, if any of them were veterans of real combat instead of just political infighting, we wouldn't be in this mess.