There are two camps on this, one that insists the Bush/Cheney regime got things wrong about Iraq but never actually lied. Then there is one that damn well knows they did.
The Pentagon Inspector General's report released this week represents the first step in unmasking the deceit and chicanery that allowed Bush/Cheney to mislead Congress and the American people and a host of other nations into a disastrous war of choice against Iraq.
The report is a first step, one that not only enables but demands the investigations go further up the chain of command.
The New York Times claims the Pentagon report reveals Dick Cheney's "Build-a-War Workshop":
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.
"...the team headed by Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, developed “alternative” assessments of intelligence on Iraq that contradicted the intelligence community and drew conclusions “that were not supported by the available intelligence.” Mr. Feith certainly knew the Central Intelligence Agency would cry foul, so he hid his findings from the C.I.A. Then Vice President Dick Cheney used them as proof of cloak-and-dagger meetings that never happened, long-term conspiracies between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that didn’t exist, and — most unforgivable — “possible Iraqi coordination” on the 9/11 attacks, which no serious intelligence analyst believed.
"The inspector general did not recommend criminal charges against Mr. Feith because Mr. Rumsfeld or his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, approved their subordinate’s “inappropriate” operations. The renegade intelligence buff said he was relieved.
"We’re sure he was. But there is no comfort in knowing that his dirty work was approved by his bosses. All that does is add to evidence that the Bush administration knowingly and repeatedly misled Americans about the intelligence on Iraq.
"...the C.I.A. kept saying there was no reliable intelligence about an Iraq-Qaeda link. So Mr. Feith was sent to review the reports and come back with the answers Mr. Cheney wanted.
"The false information included a meeting in Prague in April 2001 between an Iraqi official and Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 pilots. It never happened. But Mr. Feith’s report said it did, and Mr. Cheney will still not admit that the story is false.
"...the cooked-up Feith briefing had been leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine so Mr. Cheney could quote it as the “best source” of information about the supposed Iraq-Qaeda link."
The extreme right, including the right-wing extremists in our own country (or, if you prefer, Conservatives), keep trying to spin the notion that Bush and Cheney didn't lie, after all everyone else believed the same thing. If they did, it was because they couldn't believe that the President of the United States would disgrace himself and his country by lying straight into their faces.
These weren't simply "honest mistakes" as the right like to claim. An awful lot of time and energy went into crafting these entirely wilful, calculated lies.
These are Stephen Harper's "American Idols."
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