20 Lies in Bush's speech

The twenty lies of George W. Bush

By Patrick Martin
20 March 2003



Monday night�s 15-minute speech by President Bush, setting a
48-hour deadline for war against Iraq, went beyond the usual
distortions, half-truths, and appeals to fear and backwardness to
include a remarkable number of barefaced, easily refuted lies.

The enormous scale of the lying suggests two political conclusions:
the Bush administration is going to war against Iraq with utter
contempt for democracy and public opinion, and its war propaganda
counts heavily on the support of the American media, which not only
fails to challenge the lies, but repeats and reinforces them endlessly.

Without attempting to be exhaustive, it is worthwhile listing some of the
most important lies and contrasting Bush�s assertions with the public
record. All of the false statements listed below are directly quoted from
the verbatim transcript of Bush�s remarks published on the Internet.

Lie No. 1: �My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now
reached the final days of decision.�

The decision for war with Iraq was made long ago, the intervening
time having been spent in an attempt to create the political climate in
which US troops could be deployed for an attack. According to press
reports, most recently March 16 in the Baltimore Sun, at one of the
first National Security Council meetings of his presidency, months
before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon,
Bush expressed his determination to overthrow Saddam Hussein and
his willingness to commit US ground troops to an attack on Iraq for
that purpose. All that was required was the appropriate
pretext�supplied by September 11, 2001.

Lie No. 2: �For more than a decade, the United States and
other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to
disarm the Iraqi regime without war.�

The US-led United Nations regime of sanctions against Iraq, combined
with �no-fly� zones and provocative weapons inspections, is one of
brutal oppression. The deliberate withholding of food, medical
supplies and other vital necessities is responsible for the death of
more than a million Iraqis, half of them children. Two UN officials who
headed the oil-for-food program resigned in protest over the
conditions created in Iraq by the sanctions. The CIA used the
inspectors as a front, infiltrating agents into UNSCOM, the original
inspections program. The CIA�s aim was to spy on Iraq�s top officials
and target Saddam Hussein for assassination.

Lie No. 3: �The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to
gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security
Council resolutions demanding full disarmament...�

Iraq has never �defied� a Security Council resolution since the end of
the Persian Gulf War in 1991. It has generally cooperated with the
dictates of the UN body, although frequently under protest or with
reservations, because many of the resolutions involve gross
violations of Iraqi sovereignty. From 1991 to 1998, UN inspectors
supervised the destruction of the vast bulk of the chemical and
biological weapons, as well as delivery systems, which Iraq
accumulated (with the assistance of the US) during the Iran-Iraq war,
and they also destroyed all of Iraq�s facilities for making new
weapons.

Lie No. 4: �Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have
failed again and again because we are not dealing with
peaceful men.�

According to the Washington Post of March 16, referring to the
1991-1998 inspection period: �[U]nder UN supervision, Iraq destroyed
817 of 819 proscribed medium-range missiles, 14 launchers, 9 trailers
and 56 fixed missile-launch sites. It also destroyed 73 of 75 chemical
or biological warheads and 163 warheads for conventional
explosives. UN inspectors also supervised destruction of 88,000 filled
and unfilled chemical munitions, more than 600 tons of weaponized
and bulk chemical weapons agents, 4,000 tons of precursor
chemicals and 980 pieces of equipment considered key to production
of such weapons.�

Lie No. 5: �The Iraq regime continues to possess and
conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.�

The Washington Post article cited above noted that CIA officials were
concerned �about whether administration officials have exaggerated
intelligence in a desire to convince the American public and foreign
governments that Iraq is violating United Nations prohibitions against
chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and long-range missile
systems.� The article quoted �a senior intelligence analyst� who said
the inspectors could not locate weapons caches �because there may
not be much of a stockpile.�

Former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, who resigned from the
Blair government Monday in protest over the decision to go to war
without UN authorization, declared, �Iraq probably has no weapons of
mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term.�
Even if Iraq is concealing some remnants of its 1980s arsenal, these
would hardly deserve Bush�s lurid description, since they are primitive
and relatively ineffective. �Some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised� are those being unleashed by the United States on Iraq:
cruise missiles, smart bombs, fuel-air explosives, the 10,000-pound
�daisy-cutter� bomb, the 20,000-pound MOAB just tested in Florida. In
addition, the US has explicitly refused to rule out the use of nuclear
weapons.

Lie No. 6: �[Iraq] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists,
including operatives of Al Qaeda.�

No one, not even US government, seriously believes there is a
significant connection between the Islamic fundamentalists and the
secular nationalist Ba�athist regime in Iraq, which have been mortal
enemies for decades. The continued assertion of an Al Qaeda-Iraq
alliance is a desperate attempt to link Saddam Hussein to the
September 11 attacks.

It also serves to cover up the responsibility of American imperialism
for sponsoring Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. The forces that now
comprise Al Qaeda were largely recruited, trained, armed and set in
motion by the CIA itself, as part of a long-term policy of using Islamic
fundamentalists as a weapon against left-wing movements in the
Muslim countries. This policy was pursued from the 1950s and was
escalated prior to and during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan,
which ended in 1989. Osama bin Laden himself was part of the
CIA-backed mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan before he turned
against Washington in the 1990s.

Lie No. 7: �America tried to work with the United Nations to
address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue
peacefully.�

The Bush administration went to the United Nations because it wanted
UN sanction for military action and it wanted UN member states to
cough up funds for postwar operations, along the lines of its financial
shakedown operation for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Bush�s most
hawkish advisors, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
and Vice President Cheney, initially opposed going to the UN
because they did not want diplomacy to slow down the drive to war.
They only agreed after Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that
the pace of the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf gave enough
time to get the UN to rubber-stamp the war.

Lie No. 8: �These governments [the Security Council majority]
share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to
meet it.�

This is belied by virtually every statement on Iraq issued by the
governments of France, Russia, China, Germany and other countries
opposed to military action, which have repeatedly declared that they
see no imminent threat from Iraq. Bush brands his opponents on the
Security Council as cowards, as though they were afraid to take
action against Saddam Hussein. These countries were, in fact,
increasingly alarmed�by the United States, not Iraq. Insofar as they
summoned up resolve, to the shock of the Bush administration, it was
to deny UN support for the war that Washington had already decided
to wage.

Lie No. 9: �Many nations, however, do have the resolve and
fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad
coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the
world.�

Only three nations are contributing military forces to the war: 250,000
from the US, 40,000 from Britain, and 2,000 from Australia. The other
members of the �broad coalition� are those which have been bribed
or browbeaten to allow the US to fly over their countries to bomb
Iraq, to station troops, ships or warplanes on their territory, or provide
technical assistance or other material aid to the war. None will do any
fighting. All are acting against the expressed desire of their own
population.

Lie No. 10: �The United Nations Security Council has not
lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.�

Bush defines the UN body�s responsibility as serving as a rubber
stamp for whatever action the United States government demands. In
relation to the UN, however, the United States does have definite
responsibilities, including refraining from waging war without Security
Council authorization, except in the case of immediate self-defense.
Under Article 42 of the UN Charter, it is for the Security Council, not
the US or Britain, to decide how Security Council resolutions such as
1441 are to be enforced. The US decision to �enforce� its
interpretation of 1441 regardless of the will of the Security Council is
a violation of international law.

Lie No. 11: �If we must begin a military campaign, it will be
directed against the lawless men who rule your country and
not against you.�



The widely reported US military strategy is to conduct an aerial
bombardment of Iraq so devastating that it will �shock and awe� the
Iraqi people and compel the Iraqi armed forces to surrender en
masse. According to one press preview, US and British forces �plan
to launch the deadliest first night of air strikes on a single country in
the history of air power. Hundreds of targets in every region of Iraq
will be hit simultaneously.� Estimates of likely Iraqi civilian casualties
from the immediate impact of bombs and missiles range from
thousands to hundreds of thousands, and even higher when the
long-term effects are included.

Lie No. 12: �As our coalition takes their power, we will deliver
the food and medicine you need.�

This is particularly cynical, since the immediate consequence of
Bush�s 48-hour ultimatum was the withdrawal of all UN humanitarian
aid workers and the shutdown of the oil-for-food program, which
underwrites the feeding of 60 percent of Iraq�s population. As for
medicine, the US has systematically deprived the Iraqi people of
needed medicine for the past 12 years, insisting that even the most
basic medical supplies, like antibiotics and syringes, be banned as
�dual-use� items that could be used in a program of biological warfare.

Lie No. 13: �We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we
will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.�

The goal of the Bush administration is to install a US puppet regime in
Baghdad, initially taking the form of an American military dictatorship. It
is no exaggeration to say that the US government has been the
leading promoter of dictatorships around the world, from Pinochet of
Chile to Suharto of Indonesia to Saddam Hussein himself, who,
according to one recent report, got his political start as an
anti-communist hit-man working in a CIA-backed plot to assassinate
Iraq�s left-nationalist President Qasem in 1959.

A classified State Department report described by the Los Angeles
Times of March 14 not only concluded that a democratic Iraq was
unlikely to arise from the devastation of war, it suggested that this was
not even desirable from the standpoint of American interests, because
�anti-American sentiment is so pervasive that elections in the short
term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to
the United States.�

Lie No. 14: �Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation,
the American people can know that every measure has been
taken to avoid war and every measure will be taken to win it.�

This combines a lie and a brutal truth. The Bush administration has
taken every possible measure to insure that war takes place, viewing
the resumption of UN weapons inspections with barely disguised
hostility and directing its venom against those countries that have
suggested a diplomatic settlement with Iraq is achievable. In
prosecuting the war, the Bush administration is indeed prepared to
use �every measure,� up to an including nuclear weapons, in order to
win it.

Lie No. 15: �War has no certainty except the certainty of
sacrifice.�

There will be colossal sacrifices for the Iraqi people, and sacrifices in
blood and economic well-being for the American people as well. But
for Bush�s real constituency, the wealthiest layer at the top of
American society, there will be no sacrifices at all. Instead, the
administration is seeking a tax cut package of over $700 billion,
including the abolition of taxation on corporate dividends. Major US
corporations are in line to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in
profits from the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure shattered by the
coming US assault. These include the oil construction firm Halliburton,
which Vice President Cheney headed prior to joining the Bush
administration, and which continues to include Cheney on its payroll.

Lie No. 16: �[T]he only way to reduce the harm and duration of
war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we
are prepared to do so.�

Every aggressor claims to deplore the suffering of war and seeks to
blame the victim for resisting, and thus prolonging the agony. Bush is
no different. His hypocritical statements of �concern� for the Iraqi
people cannot disguise the fact that, as many administration
apologists freely admit, this is �a war of choice��deliberately sought
by the US government to pursue its strategic agenda in the Middle
East.

Lie No. 17: �The terrorist threat to America and the world will
be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is
disarmed.�

No one, even in the American military-intelligence complex, seriously
believes this. US counter-terrorism officials have repeatedly said that a
US conquest and occupation of Iraq, by killing untold thousands of
Arabs and Muslims and inflaming public opinion in the Arab world and
beyond, will spark more terrorism, not less.

Lie No. 18: �We are now acting because the risks of inaction
would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of
Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied
many times over.�

This is belied by the record of the past twelve years, which has seen a
steady decline in Iraqi military power. Saddam Hussein has never
been a threat to any �free nation,� if that term has any meaning, only to
the reactionary oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf and to neighboring
Iran, all ruled by regimes that are as repressive as his.

Lie No. 19: �As we enforce the just demands of the world, we
will also honor the deepest commitments of our country.�

The demands of the world were expressed by the millions who
marched in cities throughout the world on February 15 and March 15
to oppose a unilateral US attack on Iraq. Bush seeks to have it both
ways�claiming to enforce previous Security Council resolutions
against Iraq (�the just demands of the world�), while flagrantly defying
the will of the majority of the Security Council, the majority of the
world�s governments, and the vast majority of the world�s people.

Lie No. 20: �Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi
people are deserving and capable of human liberty... The
United States with other countries will work to advance
liberty and peace in that region.�

For �the Iraqi people,� substitute �the Egyptian people,� �the people of
the Arabian peninsula,� �the Pakistani people� or those of other
US-backed dictatorships, not to mention the Palestinians who live
under a brutal Israeli occupation that is supported by Washington.
Does the US government believe that any of them are �deserving and
capable of human liberty?� When the parliament of Turkey, under the
pressure of popular opposition, voted to bar the US from using
Turkish territory to invade Iraq, the Bush administration appealed to
the Turkish military to pressure the government into overturning this
democratic decision.

[Edited on 21-3-2003 by georgporg]

lies, mass arrestations, war ... where will this end ?

Keep looking until you can't look no more. You See???

I wish more people took the effort to do things like this.

How strange. This forum is full of people who are ready to defend the war and defend Bush, but none of those outspoken individuals have made a comment on this thread.

The post is factual and logical, and it seems there is no argument, Bush is a liar.

So, is everyone happy that a war is being fought, in their name, by such a man?

And since he is a liar, can anything he says be believed?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
BTW Hello all, interesting forum.

I defend the "war" beacause of those who are fighting!
I don't defend Bush, and I don't agree with alot of things he does. Noone ever said that ANY president was completely truthful. What would make that change all of a sudden? Also if I had it my way there would always be peace, we would all love eachother to the greastest extent all over the world, we would freely come and go into eachothers countries-No better yet we would all be one country Blah Blah Blah.... But this is the world as we know it and none of us have the power to change it. Perhaps Bush is a big fat liar with the worst intentions noone can imagine...so be it!! What are you going to do about it? What am I to do about it?
You can be the one to tell my husband to throw in his BDU's and retreat somewhere up in the mountains, that this war isn't worth him fighting because the man with the power is nothing more then a liar

magestica:

I defend the "war" beacause of those who are fighting!

Those who are against the war aren't against those who are fighting, they are against the fighting. I hope (in vain of course) that there are no more casualties on either side, I wouldn't wish ill on any Allied soldiers...

majestica:

Perhaps Bush is a big fat liar with the worst intentions noone can imagine...so be it!!

I'm not saying that acknowledging Bush as a liar would empower anyone in anyway. The war will go on. What I am saying is people shouldn't swallow all the propaganda he spews out. He has made alot of statements about what Iraq has got, and hasn't got, and what he plans to do with Iraq's wealth. People should be suspicious of what a liar is saying to them.

Also, I think it says a lot about Americans that Bush telling blatent lies is just accepted wth:

What am I to do about it?

Please tell me what are BDU's anyone?

haha, the people in power have been telling lies for 100's of years it doesnt change anything...

i oppose the war because of those who are fighting. when lies of corrupt government put the lives of the people in jeopordy how can freedom exist?

we have to demand that our leaders be truthful; not accept that they are "big fat liars". especially when the lives of people like your husband and my family are at stake. it is our responsibility in a democracy to hold our leaders accountable for their actions. if we allow ourselves to continue to dismiss their half-truths and out right lies then we have failed to live up to the standards of the democratic system that we wish to export.

i wouldn't tell your husband to put down his weapon. i would tell you to stop making excuses for corruption in our government--it's there because we excuse it. if we stopped making these excuses then your husband wouldn't have to pick up his weapon and put his life on the line for a lie.

Please tell me what are BDU's anyone?

Battle Dress Uniforms, but I don't see how that relates to this conversation.

BDU's are the camouflage uniforms the military members wear.

So what your saying is...correct me if I'm wrong please-
that because someone said he lied 20 times during his speech that he's now labled as a liar?? What if we aren't to know everything? Maybe he is lying for good reason? To protect the truth that we can't handle.
And let's not jump to any conclusions either about what he plans to do. Since we aren't in that mans bedroom at night we can only speculate what his plans and intentions are. But I guess we will all see him for what he really is when everything is said and done.
And don't think for one minute that I am defending him either. I only defend what he represents and that is our country and our people.
There are probably many dark intentions behind this war, I don't doubt that. I have alot of speculations about this war, and I just keep them to myself hopefully to be proven wrong. But I'm not for one second going to think that these people out there fighting are fighting a lost cause-so to speak and dying for the greed of our leaders and I'm sure I speak for many, if not all of them.

I really don't see bush going anywhere in this term, Infact I would love the press to really sting him out on these "lies" but we won't see that happening in the near future.

sure they have a good reason for lying--just like Bill Clinton, we impeached him for a lying about a BJ (i agreed with that)--and the Bushies lie about something as important as war and there is no outrage. it's all the same; mass trickery, calculated dishonesty. that doesn't piss you off a little bit? if they told the truth you would oppose them so instead they lie to get you to go along. how can democracy work under these folk? i say american needs to clean house. if you lie to the public once--you're out--zero tolerance. no more excuse--they all lie--politicans are corrupt--they must have a good reason--bs, you lie you're out.

Then I guess I'll vote Scooby Doo as the next president.
Since you said it best that ALL politicians are nothing more then liars.
Of course, you silly, I'm a weee bid ticked off at the fact that he may be deceiving us all. But this is a no win situation. Sorry I can't gather the entire US of A to follow me in the "Bush is a liar campaign". And furthermore, as I have said before and I'll say it again and again....It's not the front man we need worry about it's those hiding in the shadows, and no matter who we vote or don't vote for in future elections, they will always be there...Do you catch my drift???

That�s it is it? This is the sum of opposition to this post we are going to get?

Okay then.

You concede this man is lying for whatever reason. Have you seen any of the other examples of his lying? It is not merely to protect the people from issues they can�t handle, nor matters of national security. He has lied on many seemingly innocuous issues of which you can see plenty of evidence on in this site alone. If you can see that he is lying, doesn�t it naturally follow that you should ask yourself why? He's not lying just for the kick of it. There is an underlying hidden agenda behind all this, aren�t you at least interested to find out why or what it is?
Yes, politicians have been lying for hundreds of years. Does that mean we should give in? Does that mean we should sit back and say there is nothing I can do about it and let them do what they want? Do not listen to the people who present the 'I am but one man' argument. It is bullsh!t. It only takes one person to change the world. You claim to be patriotic. If you accept that they are lying, is it patriotic to follow a blind path that your leaders have set for your country, to which your people have no knowledge? Is it patriotic to defend these lies simply because they are your leaders? Is it patriotic to sit back and let them continue to lead you down their chosen path, and offer no resistance?
Many people through out history have stood up to these kinds of leaders; and won through. It angers me when I hear people say there is nothing I can do. It is the biggest fallacy ever. If you think there is nothing you can do then why are you still breathing? Go dig your grave, lie in it, and wait for your end. For you might as well be dead.

i'm sorry magestica, you are wrong. we live in a democracy we can change it if we stop acting helpless and stop avoiding the situation we find ourselves in. all the power belongs to the people if it didn't they wouldn't even go through the pretense of lying to us. i can't stand it when americans say we can't fix things. we can't change the system? of course we can, we are the system. what if the founders had said well, that's just the way it is...what if Martin Luther King Jr. (peace be upon him) had said oh well, that's just a fact of life?

what's the point in being american if you have no voice? what's the point of democracy if its parts work against the people and not for the people?

somebody snatch me off the soapbox...i'm heavily medicated.

You people are kidding right? No of course not..Anyway, all that article did was put a spin on the things he was saying. He wasn't lying.

Lie number 21 : Kurdish liberation

Well, you liberals seem not to notice when Clinton a.k.a "Wild Bill" lied on national television. But when Bush lies it all hell is'nt it? The point is Bush may have lied about a war, a lie that might be used to keep the people from hysteria. But Clinton lies to hide his sexual hunger.

Originally posted by kegs
That�s it is it? This is the sum of opposition to this post we are going to get?

Okay then
[/quote Yep guess it's just little ole me

I think you should know I didn't start the post about 20 lies in Bushs' speech here, but you guys are all looking to me as if I need to go do something about his lies?? Where oh where is the person who wrote this thread? Why do people start a thread then let everyone else do the debating for them?
Oh well, no matter, I'm sorry too Saphronia but unfortunately the reallity of the matter is this..We live in a world where we have freedom of speech yes, but when we stand alone or with only few-accusing the president-no less that he's a liar, we are looked upon as "nuts" and often times we are shut up quicker then we can get the whole story out! Sometimes people are only threatened, sometimes put in institutions-then labled as crazy, or worse yet people have been killed. So once again I'll ask you..what do YOU want ME to do about the fact that our president is a liar?? I can debate this with you guys all day long but for what purpose? It's simply a debate and nothing more, it does noone any good. WE are not the power here in America or atleast speaking for myself, I'm not powerful enough to change every Americans mind about the president and his intentions. And that is exactly what I would have to do in order to make a difference here.
If it is at all true that the president can get up in front of the whole world and lie his A@@ off, then by golly you need to think of this...he must have MANY people behind him protecting his words that are more powerful then you and I. So again I'll ask you..What do you want me to do about it??? Think hard before you respond to my post please and read it well, until it makes sense to you. you'll understand what I'm saying if you do.