Well, now you can make it 936 lies.
A report published on Friday and totally ignored by the news meida sheds even more light on the premeditated lying and deception that took the United States to war in Iraq. The findings are based on new evidence compiled by Dr. John Prados and published by the National Security Archive.
Most notably, Dr. Prados shows the depth of the deception perpetrated against citizens and Congress regarding the alleged threat to U.S. security posed by Iraq. He discovered that the White House rewrote the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and then issued a doctored report to Congress on Oct. 4, 2002 – which few in Congress even bothered to read. In fact, Prados found evidence that the Oct. 4 White Paper was written in July 2002, and altered only slightly after the final NIE arrived. The White Paper served as the basis for the war.
His conclusion is that the Bush-Cheney White Paper "justifying" the invasion was developed a full three months in advance of the intelligence data and analysis that should have served as the basis for that justification:
"The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq.
"The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the "White Paper" ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002."
Ultimately, the White House had what it wanted by July 2002.
When the National Intelligence Estimate arrived from a totally intimidated intelligence community, there was still one hope of a rational outcome on the rush to war. The NIE delivered to the White House on Oct. 1, 2002 noted that the only scenario in which Iraq would attack the United States involved a U.S. attack on Iraq that threatened Saddam Hussein's survival.
It was brutally simple. The one way to cause the phony claims of Hussein's intent to attack the United States is to go to war and threaten his regime.
Therefore, refraining from war was the best way to protect the United States, according to the NIE.
"Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war.”
In the most supreme of tragic ironies, few members of Congress even bothered to review the distorted White Paper before voting overwhelmingly to approve the invasion.
The seemingly endless war in Iraq has become a total disaster on multiple levels for all involved.
The awful toll in human deaths and casualties is largely ignored but real nevertheless. Over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been lost in battle and tens of thousands injured. In excess of one million Iraqi civilians are dead due to civil strife unleashed by the invasion. The U.S. Treasury is drained and the steep decline in respect for the United States around the world is just beginning to be seen. The United States political establishment responds with collective denial on a scale that's incomprehensible.
Yet John "The War Mongerer" McCain continues makes the bizarre yet unchallenged claim that U.S. is "surrendering" with victory in clear sight.
McCain touts the surge without ever mentioning that 4-million Iraqis are "displaced from their homes." Some 10% of Iraq's pre-war population is dead or injured and there are 5-million Iraqi orphans. This pathological view of victory claims the "surge' is a success flies in the face of a devastated population in an obliterated nation lacking in the most essential supplies and services. Iraq is a nation where death continues on a shopping spree.
Will anyone ever be held to account for this series of premeditated deceptions?
