...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Tuesday, March 16, 2004
      ( 1:16 PM )
 
Database of Lies

Rep. Harry Waxman, ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform, has now put out a database of misleading statements made by Bush administration leaders in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. This database is searchable and holds an incredible amount of information. It contains 237 specific misleading public statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. Powell and Rice.

My first search was a basic one: all speakers, on the subject of "urgent threat" for the time span Jan 1, 2002 through March 20, 2003. For each of the 11 hits I got, every quote is given and then an explanation as to why it's misleading. Example:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Urgent Threat:

"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger.
It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the
Middle East and to the international peace and stability.
It's a danger we cannot ignore."

Source: Donald Rumsfeld Addresses the Conference of
Army Reserve Operators, Defense Department (1/20/2003).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Explanation This statement was misleading because it
suggested that Iraq posed an urgent threat despite the
fact that the U.S. intelligence community had deep divisions
and divergent points of view regarding Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction. As Director of Central Intelligence George
Tenet noted in February 2004, "Let me be clear: analysts
differed on several important aspects of these programs
and those debates were spelled out in the Estimate. They
never said there was an 'imminent' threat."

It's an incredible resource, and one I hope democrats and those opposed to this administration's destruction of our standing in the world will use in this election process. I've preserved the link over on my side bar under the Iraq section AND in the election box under "Reasons Why" for your future reference and use.

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