Did Bush Lie About Weapons of Mass Destruction?

by James D. Agresti | February 17, 2016 12:03 am

During Saturday night’s GOP presidential debate in North Carolina, Donald Trump asserted[1] that former president George W. Bush and his administration deliberately misled the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Trump declared: “They lied! They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none.”

agresti[2]

This claim that Bush lied about Iraq’s weaponry has been a repeated accusation[3] of his political opponents. The same individuals have also ascribed various motives to Bush, including the desire to take Iraq’s oil, enrich the military-industrial complex, and settle a vendetta with Saddam Hussein on behalf of Bush’s father.

Conspiracies aside, the notion that Bush purposely deceived anyone about this matter conflicts with a broad range of verifiable facts. Even before Bush took office, Bill Clinton, high-ranking members of his administration, and many prominent Democrats assessed the evidence and arrived at the same conclusion that Bush reached. For example:

Democrats made many other similar statements to this effect both before and after Bush took office. Yet, Snopes.com[9], a website ostensibly dedicated to debunking urban legends, has tried to diminish their import by noting that some of them “were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S.”

That line of reasoning is an irrelevant distraction from the issue at hand. Such quotes were not brought forward to show that these people supported military action but that Democrats had no legitimate grounds for accusing Bush of lying. The chain email that Snopes critiqued for sharing these quotes makes this abundantly clear in its concluding words: “Now the Democrats say President Bush lied, that there never were any WMD’s and he took us to war for his oil buddies??? Right!!!”

In the same piece, Snopes also whitewashed these quotes by declaring that several of them predate military strikes in 1998 that the Clinton administration said “degraded Saddam Hussein’s ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.”

That is a classic half-truth, for on the day that Bill Clinton ordered this action, he stated[10] that these strikes will “significantly” degrade Hussein’s programs, but they “cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction capacity.”

In addition to the facts above, in 2004, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500+ page report[11] about “Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.” The committee members—including eight Republicans and seven Democrats—unanimously concluded:

The Committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so.

This statement appears on page 273 of the report, and the next 10 pages of the report provide detailed documentation that proves it.

Significantly, this report is not dismissive of the intelligence failures that preceded the Iraq war. It declares that “most of the major key judgments” made by the intelligence community in its “most authoritative” prewar report were “either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.” However, as the quote above reveals, the committee found no malfeasance on the part of Bush or his appointees.

With disregard for these facts, the self-described [12]“progressive” news outlet ThinkProgress, is giving credence to Trump’s claim by reporting[13]:

A 2005 report from United Nations inspectors[14] found that by the time Bush sent U.S. soldiers to disarm Saddam Hussein, all evidence indicated there was nothing to support claims of nuclear or biological weapons.

The hyperlink above leads to a 2005 Washington Post article about the Robb-Silberman report, which was commissioned by President Bush himself. These Think Progress and Washington Post articles both fail to provide a link to the actual report[15] and any indication that the following statement appears on its opening page:

After a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein’s programs was what they believed. They were simply wrong.

The same ThinkProgress article, written by Zack Ford[16], also mischaracterizes a 2006 report from 60 Minutes. According to Ford:

In 2006, Tyler Drumheller, former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, revealed that in 2002, Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice were informed[17] that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

In reality, 60 Minutes found[18] that a lone source, an Iraqi foreign minister who[19] “demonized the U.S. and defended Saddam,” had claimed this was the case. It is no mystery that such a person would be greeted with skepticism.

In summary, Trump’s allegation that Bush lied has no demonstrable basis in fact. Instead, it is grounded in proven falsehoods.

James D. Agresti[20] is the president of Just Facts[21], a nonprofit institute dedicated to researching publishing verifiable facts about public policy.

Also see,

Tax Fairness Question at GOP Debate Rooted in Falsehood Spread by Media

Endnotes:
  1. asserted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=MaT123vtFxQ
  2. [Image]: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/agresti.jpg
  3. repeated accusation: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22bush+lied%22+%22weapons+of+mass+destruction%22+Iraq&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
  4. November 10, 1999: http://1997-2001.state.gov/www/statements/1999/991110a.html
  5. February 17, 1998: http://clinton6.nara.gov/1998/02/1998-02-17-president-remarks-on-iraq-to-pentagon-personnel.html
  6. December 16, 1998: https://pelosi.house.gov/sites/pelosi.house.gov/files/pressarchives/releases/priraq1.htm
  7. February 18, l998: http://1997-2001.state.gov/www/statements/1998/980218.html
  8. October 9, 1998: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-1998-10-09/html/CREC-1998-10-09-pt1-PgS12239-2.htm
  9. Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
  10. he stated: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1998-book2/html/PPP-1998-book2-doc-pg2182.htm
  11. 500+ page report: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/doc12.pdf
  12. self-described : http://thinkprogress.org/about/
  13. reporting: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/13/3749514/trump-wmds-debate/
  14. 2005 report from United Nations inspectors: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21854-2005Apr2.html
  15. actual report: https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/wmd_report.pdf
  16. Zack Ford: http://thinkprogress.org/person/zford/
  17. were informed: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2006/04/23/4980/60-minutes-cia-official-reveals-bush-cheney-rice-were-personally-told-iraq-had-no-wmd-in-fall-2002/
  18. found: http://thinkprogress.org/60-minutes-42306/
  19. who: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11927856/#.VsJ9vF4mq_s
  20. James D. Agresti: http://www.justfacts.com/james.d.agresti.asp
  21. Just Facts: http://www.justfacts.com/

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