Lying for Bush

On September 11 George Bush contrived with Democratic assistance to send David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker to tell Congress how the Iraq war is going.

Bush wanted the date not because he thought it would be, in Lincoln's words, an altogether fitting and proper way to honor the fallen, but because he thought it a clever way to reinforce a lie he has been caught in many times -- that his war was an answer to that attack.

While Petraeus and Crocker pitched Congress, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, used a Pentagon memorial service to peddle the same line: we avenge the innocent by waging war in a country unconnected to their tragedy. It's all in keeping with a long held administration belief that it is unpatriotic for anyone else to politicize 9/11.

Petraeus, Crocker and Pace took a page from Karl Rove's White House Iraq Group playbook: Craft sentences that imply more than they say. Deliver them with conviction. When found out, reveal the artful parsing that proves you never said what everyone heard.

It always worked better than it should. We believed Saddam was behind 9/11; that he had weapons of mass destruction; that his oil would pay for Bush's war; that Iraq wanted to be just like us; that the mission was accomplished, resistance in its last throes.

To make it work Bush counts on us not to read any more than he does. Petraeus and Crocker's tales of progress contradicted the published findings of military and intelligence professionals across the administration and in Congress:

A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, a report of the consensus views of all intelligence agencies, said flatly that the Iraq War undermines the war on terror. It warned that the worst threat we now face is from "dispersed, self radicalizing" terror cells that are almost impossible to engage, let alone defeat, in pitched battles.

A report of the non partisan Government Accountability Office gave Iraq passing grades on just 3 of 18 'benchmarks'. General Petraeus awarded passing grades on 9, a hell of a curve by any standard. GAO staff leaked their report early to ensure that it and not some watered down facsimile got to the public.

A 14 member mission led by Retired General James Jones, former head of NATO, unanimously concluded that Iraqi's security forces are a disaster. When polled, a substantial majority of Iraqis voice their agreement.

Don't trust anything our government says? Check out the official Iraqi tabulations of sectarian killings, according to which Petraeus' claim of a 55% drop is utterly false.

Petraeus touted success in Baghdad and Anbar Province. In Baghdad, Shiites simply drove Sunnis out. If one side finishes the other off, casualty rates drop but it's not what you or I mean by progress.

In Anbar, locals came together to snuff out a home grown strain of Al Qaeda that sprouted up after we invaded. It would appear its prospects of finding safe haven in Iraq are dimmer than Bush lets on. This isn't a small point.

Bush says early withdrawal will mean a bloodbath. (If only he'd thought this much about casualties before going in.) Baghdad and Anbar suggest hanging around forever isn't the best way to avoid one.

What Baghdad shows is how well and how quickly a partition of Iraq might work. Anbar proves Al Qaeda isn't the worst threat to Iraq, which doesn't need 100,000 American troops to deal with it. In a reasoned and informed debate these two "success stories" would be seen for what they are-- two more arguments for getting out.

On Thursday Bush asked support for "General Petraeus's strategy." He seemed to promise troop cuts but really said only that with luck the 'surge' might end by July, 2008. After that, 130,000 troops -- Rumsfeld's original force -- will fight on into someone else's presidency.

In the Senate, John Warner asked Petraeus if the war is making America safer. Petraeus squirmed, as if haunted by the ghost of Colin Powell at the UN. Petraeus generally ducked big questions, confining himself when he could to the merely tactical. He hopes we'll remember the strategy as Bush's.

Just before the 2004 election, Petraeus wrote a Washington Post piece informing voters that things in Iraq were really turning around. His optimism then puts his testimony now in context. Maybe things were going even better then -- or maybe his willingness to carry political water for Bush is what got him his present job.

The administration wouldn't feel it had wrung all the propaganda potential from the 9/11 anniversary without at least one attack on the war's critics. Actually there were many but the one that took the spotlight was the attack on MoveOn.org.

MoveOn's play on Petraeus' name -- general betray us -- was puerile. When will liberals learn how to talk to people not already in agreement with them? Still, if Americans read more they'd know MoveOn got its facts right. Petraeus didn't even try. It may not be treason to lie about a war, but the real patriot is almost always the one telling the truth.

This is Petraeus' first combat. He led the failed effort to train Iraqi security forces. He got the top job due to his one proven skill, talking to Congressmen. Today he's a Republican kitchen saint but when the truth catches up with him he'll look like George Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and everyone else who disgraced themselves lying for Bush.

Before Bush's speech, a leader of our new Anbar coalition was murdered. Worse yet, Iraqi Kurds, till now our only true allies in country, undercut the vital effort to divide Iraq's oil revenues among its three major factions. This they did by cutting their own deal with Hunt Oil of Texas.

Hunt's president, Ray Hunt is a close Bush ally and member of his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Did Bush green-light this prolonging of Iraq's chaos while asking our troops to prolong their sacrifice? If he did he betrayed his alleged mission and our troops and we need to know it.
Our democracy grows weak. Before the war Bush had to hide findings of government experts showing Iraq's nuclear program was peaceful. Now government hides reports in plain sight of a public that can't be bothered to read them.

In New York last week, families of the dead wept as the names were read aloud. At night, a "tribute in light" shot columns from 44 search lights up into the night from Ground Zero. The effect is of a ghostly specter of the twin towers. People are said to find it comforting. Better to honor our democracy and our dead with the truth.

Comments

[booker52]

I have never believed that this war was tied to 9/11. Still don't. Bush can lie all he wants about that. Only a dummy will buy that bill of goods. It is not about giving them a better government either, duh! It's about oil. Bush can talk all he want, in the end our troops are over there for the bottem line. No bid contracts, etc. That is why Bush is so concerned about running out on the clock on this war. Look at the profits the oil companies have earned, check out Cheney's tax returns, how about Bush's???

[wforward]

Petraeus is not the problem -- Bush is the problem (and by "Bush" I mean the whole circle of zealots that led us into this atrocious mess). Petraeus is a general doing a general's job -- of course he's going to put everything in the best possible light -- he's trying desperately to make an omelet out of Humpty Dumpty, but he's just a cook.

[deminmo]

What is the truth? Its been extreemly elusive and based on who says "this is the truth". The American people can't trust anyone in Washington.

Senators vote a certain way because they are told to. Big oil, such a s ExxonMobil and others scramble to make profit from "war" and tell us gas is high because (fill in blank).

Senator Hagel says there is no such thing as a "surge" in military protocol. Its apparently working, according to reliable sources.

Where do we go from here? A couple of days ago I was all for being civilized in dealing with Washington. Maybe there is something in the idea of "storming the Bastile"!

[Bondaroid]

You know the Republicans and Bush do not have a lock on telling lies. What about Hillary Clinton, if she lies about where she got her name from what else will she lie about? Hillary stated that she that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary who became known to the world after climbing Mount Everest. The funny part is, until then, no one knew who he was. Hillary was born in 1947, Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest in 1953. So lying is not a Republican thing, if you need another example we can ask Bill about his cigar. The saddest part about politics today is that none of the politicians in Washington have been honest with anyone, Democrats and Republicans alike. If the were they would tell you that the American people don't matter as much as their political agendas or their egos. They could care less about the extreme Socialist elements of the Democratic Party as well as the Neo-Cons of the Republican Party. So who lies really is a mute point they all do it and they all will get us killed at some point as with Iraq for the Republicans and Vietnam for the Democrats.

[Frankly Speaking]

Thank you for telling the truth, George Bush and his administration are lying. From the accusations that he inherited a recession through 9/11 and Iraq; all lies. Americans need to start calling it what it is; lies. This administration is insulting to all who can read and determine the truth. George Bush is a liar.

[truthtotell]

Mr. Bush has a standing appreciation for the use of the military in foreign policy. In this he does not stand alone. Many of the Democrats have the same sort of appreciation: Mrs Clinton for one. It stretches credulity to think that he did not use our satellite capacities to study the ground in Iraq before his invasion. Our current capacities are actually more advanced forms than those which we used to map out every square inch of ground of the Soviet Union. If we choose to say that, as commander in chief, he did not use the technolgy available to him, then, as that commander, he faces the charge of deriliction. But
of course he was not derilict. He knew there were no weapons of the type he fed us. That is why he invaded.

Human beings learn early in life how to find out about events in places removed from their bodies. In our society, the use of satellites is an advanced stage of those processes and inferences.

[CarmanK]

Why is anyone amazed any more that the Bushies lie. Greed is insatiable. They will stop at nothing to milk this nation and the world for all its worth.

We need to stop giving the Roveites the ammunition as MoveOn.org did with the Patreaus AD, to distort truth and stir their misguided flag waving base.

The Democrats have to show "courage under fire". They need to stop mouthing bi-partisanship and demonstrate leadership. The 109th Congress gave the Bush imperial presidency a pass, the 110th has to hold him accountable. Keep putting forth bills that will end the war in Iraq. Try, Try, Try again!!!

[soeasy]

Seeing Stevelagain saying that he/she thinks that the ones that are telling the true about the government are lying, even though all the facts are there for him/her to see, even in books written by "good and old friends"; the ones that knows best, I wonder if he/she is not just as a good friend of mine uses to say , as a joke : "Do not confuse me with facts; I already made my mind."

[Kendo Nagasaki]

If Bush and Cheney are such Messiahs and men of God, will Pontius Pilate please step forward and do your duty.

Then wash your hands.

[Marnia]

I don't know why my comments have to be checked for authenticity, I am embarrassed by this.
Now, my comment is this:
To all those who believe that the President is so smart and patriotic, do they know that picture of him at GROUND ZERO was on September 12th.
On September 11th after he was told of the
World Trade Center explosions, he was in Air force One flying off to the MidWest to hide somewhere. Don't believe me? Look it up.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Declare Victory and leave.

Or peace with honor or another slogan, but do it!

[OTR6686]

Being that we are talking about how gullible the American people are, why don't we just call this country a bunch of spoiled, lazy illiterate people who never did their homework in high school and are still not doing it.
When 9/11 occurred, Bush and Tony Blair blamed it on Osama Bin Laden, and of course, he did not deny it. It was a great bonanza for him and Al Qaida. Then Bill Clinton agreed that it was Bin Laden. Where's the proof? Bush's intelligence? The same intelligence that "proved" that there were WMD in Iraq?
Democratic politicians voted to go to war in Iraq because they knew that the stupid, uneducated American electorate---the same ones who re-elected George Bush in 2004---would have put every Democrat out of office for being soft on terrorism. Let's put the blame where it belongs: the American voters.

[Bondaroid]

I keep hearing Iraq is Bush's war, but really its America's war if American troops are on the ground is it not? I can see why people would say that after our worst loss in our history during armed conflict, Vietnam. After all the Republicans started that war too, then Republican President John F. Kennedy increased the boots on the ground from 2,000 to 16,000 shortly before his assassination in 1963. Then his Republican replacement Lyndon Johnson increased the number of troops to 500,000 sending America into a full blown war in Vietnam which at the end cost America 58,209 killed, 153,303 wounded and 1,948 MIA. When the war was inherited by the Democratic President Richard Nixon already more than 30,000 brave Americans had lost their lives in South East Asia and he gets the blame for the entire war. Typical of the Republicans to blame it on the guy that didn't start it. Now they want to compare Iraq to Vietnam in which to date we have lost 3,811 with 27,400 wounded. It’s another quagmire just like Vietnam. And the Republicans want to revisit history and bring us back there when the Republican held Senate and Congress with the help of the Conservative media withheld funding for the war in Vietnam causing the pullout of American troops, the killing of untold numbers of Vietnamese people, the installation of a COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT, and the worst loss in our history. Now why would they want to micro manage another war and revisit that disaster? Typical Republicans.

[realistic2008]

A greek tragic-comedy if you ask me. A non-triumphant general coming to the Senate, sent to the trenches armed by the administration to tell children's stories to a bunch of incapacitated by actionable intelligence senators.
What a shame indeed.

[Marnia]

The article is long and a lot of it is true but I don't understand what the Democrats had to do with lying for Bush.
Because the Kurds already signed on with Hunt in an oil deal there will be no peace in Iraq because Iraq is really now a divided country.
I believe that Maliki does not want to do what Bush wants him to, therefore, there is nothing moving forward. He realizes that if he signs the oil deal that is one of the Benchmarks for us to get out then he has given up the rights for the economy of Iraq. Thus the stalemate.