Bush's Lies About WMDs

Quotes by Bush:

“The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.”

“Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.”

“We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We’re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States.”

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”

“Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.”

“The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters (6,604.3 US gallons) of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.”

“The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters (10,039 US gallons) of botulinum toxin — enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.”

“We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.”

“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

Civil liberties and terrorist detainees

Following the events of September 11, Bush issued an executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor communications between suspected terrorists outside the U.S. and parties within the U.S. without obtaining a warrant pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, maintaining that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force. The program proved to be controversial, as critics of the administration, as well as organizations such as the American Bar Association, claimed it was illegal. In August 2006, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was unconstitutional, but the decision was later reversed. On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed U.S. Senate leaders that the program would not be reauthorized by the president, but would be subjected to judicial oversight.

On October 17, 2006 Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a bill passed in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which allows the U.S. government the ability to prosecute unlawful enemy combatants by military commission rather than the standard trial. The bill also denies them access to habeas corpus and, while barring torture of detainees, allows the president to determine what constitutes torture.

On March 8, 2008, Bush vetoed H.R. 2082, a bill that would have expanded Congressional oversight over the intelligence community and banned the use of waterboarding as well as other forms of enhanced interrogation techniques, saying that "the bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror."

The CIA once considered certain enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, legally permissible.President Bush has consistently stated that the United States does not torture. Bush can authorize the CIA to use the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances The CIA has exercised the technique on certain key terrorist suspects and were given permission to do so from a memo from the Attorney General. While the Army Field Manual argues "that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information", the Bush administration states that these enhanced interrogations have "provided critical information" to preserve American lives.

Foreign Perceptions

President Bush has been criticized internationally and targeted by the global anti-war and anti-globalization campaigns, particularly for his administration's foreign policy. Views of him within the international community are more negative than previous American presidents, with France largely opposed to what he advocates and public opinion in Britain, an American ally since World War II, largely against him.

During the Bush presidency, attitudes towards the United States and the American people have become less favorable around the world. In 2006, a majority of respondents in 18 of 21 countries surveyed around the world were found to hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush. Respondents indicated that they judged his administration as negative for world security.

A March 2007 survey of Arab opinion conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland found that Bush is the most disliked leader in the Arab world. More than three times as many respondents registered their dislike for Bush as for the second most unpopular leader, Ariel Sharon.

The Pew Research Center's 2007 Global Attitudes poll found that out of 47 countries, a majority of respondents expressed "a lot of confidence" or "some confidence" in Bush in only nine countries: Israel, India, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda.

The Bush administration's support for the independence of Albanian-majority Kosovo, while endearing him to the Albanians, has troubled U.S. relations with Serbia, leading to the February 2008 torching of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade.

War in Afghanistan

On October 7, 2001, U.S. and Australian forces initiated bombing campaigns that led to the arrival on November 13 of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul. The main goals of the war were to defeat the Taliban, drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, and capture key al Qaeda leaders. In December 2001, the Pentagon reported that the Taliban had been defeated but cautioned that the war would go on to continue weakening Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Later that month the UN had installed the Afghan Interim Authority chaired by Hamid Karzai.

Efforts to kill or capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden failed as he escaped a battle in December 2001 in the mountainous region of Tora Bora, which the Bush Administration later acknowledged to have resulted from a failure to commit enough U.S. ground troops. Bin Laden and al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as the leader of the Taliban, Mohammed Omar, remain at large.

Despite the initial success in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul, by early 2003 the Taliban was regrouping, amassing new funds and recruits. In 2006 the Taliban insurgency appeared larger, fiercer, and better organized than expected, with large-scale allied offensives such as Operation Mountain Thrust attaining limited success. As a result, President Bush commissioned 3,500 additional troops to the country in March 2007.

Iraq

Iraq had been listed as a State Sponsor of Terror by the United States since 1990, and maintained poor relations with the United States since the Gulf War. The regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq proved a continuing problem for the UN and Iraq’s neighbors in its refusal to account for previously known stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, its violations of UN resolutions, and its support for terrorism against Israel and other countries. After the 1991 Gulf War, the US, French and British militaries began patrolling the Iraqi no-fly zones to protect Iraq’s Kurdish minority and Shi’ite Arab population – both of which suffered attacks from the Hussein regime before and after the 1991 Gulf War – in Iraq’s northern and southern regions, respectively.

Tensions were high throughout the 1990s, with the United States launching Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in 1998 after it failed to meet demands of "unconditional cooperation" in weapons inspections. In the aftermath of Operation Desert Fox during December 1998, Iraq announced that it would no longer respect the no-fly zones and resumed its efforts in shooting down Allied aircraft. Air strikes by the British and Americans against Iraqi anti-aircraft and military targets continued over the next few years. Also in 1998, President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act which called for regime change in Iraq on the basis of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, oppression of Iraqi citizens and attacks upon other Middle Eastern countries.

After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government claimed that Iraq was a threat to the United States because Iraq could begin to use its previously known Weapons of Mass Destruction to aid terrorist groups.

The George W. Bush administration called for the United Nations Security Council to send weapons inspectors to Iraq to find and destroy alleged weapons of mass destruction and for a UNSC resolution. UNSC Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously, which offered Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" or face "serious consequences." Resolution 1441 did not authorize the use of force by member states, thus Resolution 1441 had no effect on the UN Charter's prohibition on the use of force by member states against fellow member states. Saddam Hussein subsequently allowed UN inspectors to access Iraqi sites, while the U.S. government continued to assert that Iraq was being obstructionist. In October 2002, a large bipartisan majority in the United States Congress authorized the president to use force if necessary to disarm Iraq in order to "prosecute the war on terrorism." After failing to overcome opposition from France, Russia, and China against a UNSC resolution that would sanction the use of force against Iraq, and before the UN weapons inspectors had completed their inspections which were deemed to be fruitless by the U.S. because of Iraq's alleged deception, the United States assembled a "Coalition of the Willing" composed of nations who pledged support for a war against Iraq. On March 20, 2003, the invasion of Iraq was launched in what the Bush Administration said were the "serious consequences" spoken of in UNSC Resolution 1441.

Saddam Hussein's regime was quickly toppled and on May 1, 2003, George W. Bush stated that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. However, an insurgency arose against the U.S.-led coalition and the newly developing Iraqi military and post-Saddam government. Elements of the insurgency were led by fugitive members of Saddam's Ba'ath regime, who included Iraqi nationalists and pan-Arabists. Most insurgency leaders are violent Islamists and claim to be fighting a religious war to reestablish the Arab Islamic Caliphate of centuries past.

After months of brutal violence against Iraqi civilians by Sunni and Shi’ite terrorist groups and militias -- including Al-Qaeda in Iraq –- in January 2007 President Bush presented a new strategy for Operation Iraqi Freedom based upon Counter-insurgency theories and tactics developed by General David Petraeus. The Iraq War troop surge of 2007 was part of this "new way forward" and has been credited with a dramatic decrease in violence and an increase in political and communal reconciliation in Iraq.

U.S. Objectives and Strategies

The Bush Administration has defined the following objectives in the War on Terrorism:

1. Defeat terrorists and their organizations.
2. Identify, locate and destroy terrorists along with their organizations.
3. Deny sponsorship, support and sanctuary to terrorists.
   1. End the state sponsorship of terrorism.
   2. Establish and maintain an international standard of accountability with regard to combating terrorism.
   3. Strengthen and sustain the international effort to fight terrorism.
   4. Working with willing and able states.
   5. Enabling weak states.
   6. Persuading reluctant states.
   7. Compelling unwilling states.
   8. Interdict and disrupt material support for terrorists.
   9. Eliminate terrorist sanctuaries and havens.
4. Diminishing the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit.
   1. Partner with the international community to strengthen weak states and prevent (re)emergence of terrorism.
   2. Win the war of ideals.
5. Defend U.S. citizens and interests at home and abroad.
   1. Implement the Nation Strategy for Homeland Security.
   2. Attain domain awareness.
   3. Enhance measures to ensure the integrity, reliability, and availability of critical physical and information-based infrastructures at home and abroad.
   4. Integrate measures to protect U.S. citizens abroad.
   5. Ensure an integrated incident management capability.

Domestic response

Following the attacks, President Bush's job approval rating soared to 86%. On September 20, 2001, the U.S. president spoke before the nation and a joint session of the United States Congress, regarding the events of that day, the intervening nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and his intent in response to those events. In addition, the highly visible role played by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani won him high praise nationally and in New York. Many relief funds were immediately set up to assist victims of the attacks, with the task of providing financial assistance to the survivors of the attacks and to the families of victims. By the deadline for victim's compensation, September 11, 2003, 2,833 applications had been received from the families of those who were killed.

Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders were also implemented almost immediately after the attacks. Congress, however, was not told that the United States was under a continuity of government status until February 2002.

Within the United States, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security, representing the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, stating that it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying that it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and eliminates judicial oversight of law-enforcement and domestic intelligence gathering. The Bush Administration also invoked 9/11 as the reason to initiate a secret National Security Agency operation, "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant."