From BOLD Scripts ...by Omar Ahmed Ali
They lied to Americans, world to attack Iraq...
United States President George W. Bush and his neo-conservative ‘know-it all’ team took the country to war in Iraq on a false pretense. The funny thing is that Vice President Dick Cheney, then considered a respected foreign policy expert, kept on insisting that there is a close operational link and connection between Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden led Al Qaeda, the group that perpetrated the September 11, 2001 terrorists’ attacks on the American soil. It has since become apparent that the Bush Administration lied to the American people when it made its case on going to war in Iraq. They played on the American public fear of the threat of imminent terrorists’ attacks based on faulty and doctored intelligence.
We used to hear the Administration spin–doctors asserting in every opportunity the preponderance of evidence of the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, or WMD, in Iraq and ‘the Saddam—Al Qaeda’ close links. The group includes Dr Condoleezza Rice then National Security Adviser to Bush, Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his then deputy, the embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz et al. Now that they have been caught in a lie to the American public, they are left saying Saddam needed to be removed and as far as WMD and Al Qaeda links are concerned, the international intelligence community was all in agreement that Saddam Hussein had WMD. As if American intelligence community and or the administration listens to the outside world for any advice or to the inferior intelligence analysis so to speak. They know they didn’t listen or even considered such a thought.
The fact of the matter is that the administration did not listen or want to listen to the views of others; but only listened to themselves and those who agreed with their position. British intelligence community was taken seriously only as matter of being polite to United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Brits, too, doctored their intelligence to conform to their America counterpart’s conclusion as they were already compromised by the blind support the British Prime Minister was giving Bush.
These are the facts and not daydreaming makeup stories. With the publication of his new memoir, At the Centre of the Storm, and in an appearance on the popular “60 Minutes” television programme last Sunday, former CIA director George Tenet has become the latest former administration official to admit publicly that the Bush administration launched its war against Iraq based upon false pretenses and manipulated intelligence. Tenet writes in his memoir, “There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,”
The New York Times notes in one of their leading stories on this subject: ” But Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr Tenet and the CIA concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda.”
More than 3350 American soldiers have paid the ultimate price and several thousand Iraqi men, women and children are dead and hundreds dying every day in the war which has become very unpopular in the United States. It is without saying that the Iraq war is now widely unpopular in the United States, with 32 per cent of Americans in a recent CNN poll supporting the conflict and 60 percent (opposing) siding with Congress on the issue.
The American people spoke very clearly in November 2006 mid-term elections as being disgusted with the war and the Republican administration-led Congress that was being used as a rubber stamp by the executive. The people gave the Democrats control of the Congress, the power of the purse to do something in stopping the carnage of their soldiers if not the Iraqis.
It is so sad to see Dr Rice on Television saying that the Iraqis are better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. She continues to say the Iraqis voted and now have a democratically elected government, that the US has not been attacked and if they leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow them home. It is the administration’s view that better they fight them (the terrorists) there than at home, so says Rudy Giuliani, the Republican Party presidential aspirant front runner.
The American people spoke very clearly in November 2006 mid-term elections as being disgusted with the war and the Republican administration-led Congress that was being used as a rubber stamp by the executive. The people gave the Democrats control of the Congress, the power of the purse to do something in stopping the carnage of their soldiers if not the Iraqis.
It is so sad to see Dr Rice on Television saying that the Iraqis are better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. She continues to say the Iraqis voted and now have a democratically elected government, that the US has not been attacked and if they leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow them home. It is the administration’s view that better they fight them (the terrorists) there than at home, so says Rudy Giuliani, the Republican Party presidential aspirant front runner.
I for one support the American soldiers who are serving the nation. It is not (the soldiers’) fault that they are fighting the wrong war. It is their political leaders who are to blame and not the men and women in uniform. A friend of mine has a 20 year old son in Iraq, the father is not happy but he has no choice, and he understands that his son enlisted in the Marines now he must follow the orders.
Hours before the widely expected vetoing of the War funding Bill that spells out the troop’s withdrawal (as Bush is adamant when it comes to setting a date for troops withdrawal) the president told American and allied military officers after a visit to US Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, in Florida that a US failure in the four-year-old war “should be unacceptable to the civilized world.”
Hours before the widely expected vetoing of the War funding Bill that spells out the troop’s withdrawal (as Bush is adamant when it comes to setting a date for troops withdrawal) the president told American and allied military officers after a visit to US Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, in Florida that a US failure in the four-year-old war “should be unacceptable to the civilized world.”
Now Bush is turning his personal failed war, to be the war of the civilized people. America went to war without the permission of the United Nations or the international community. Even the UK Premier Tony Blair who is known to have stood with Bush is now distancing himself as his government has started the withdrawal process of their troops from Iraq.
The reality is that Bush has been accustomed to use the Congress as his rubber stamp organ for all the executive unilateral activities and with the new Democratic leaders in Congress that is not possible. It is easy to infer that Bush still thinks he can bulldoze his way around despite the change of guard at Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, notes: “The president wants a blank cheque. The Congress is not going to give it to him.”
The reality is that Bush has been accustomed to use the Congress as his rubber stamp organ for all the executive unilateral activities and with the new Democratic leaders in Congress that is not possible. It is easy to infer that Bush still thinks he can bulldoze his way around despite the change of guard at Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, notes: “The president wants a blank cheque. The Congress is not going to give it to him.”
Another sad reality that is being hidden from the American public is the administration’s ignorance of the cultural implications of the war and the occupation. For instance, there are more Iraqis dying in one hour than they used to (die) in a month under the brutal dictatorship reign of Saddam Hussein. My good friend Ed doesn’t know this reality and I could say Ed is an average intelligent American. In addition Iraqis are afraid to even go to the markets, to work, children to schools without the thinking perhaps they will never make it back home. The sectarian violence was contained under Saddam, and was re-ignited by the war; the war that Bush now says “the civilized world cannot accept failure”.
Apart from fighting the wrong war, as per Republican presidential candidate John McCain the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history.
“We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement—that’s the kindest word I can give you—of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war,”
The Bush’s house of cards seems to falling apart. His Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is in trouble for lying on his act of firing the eight US Attorneys (federal prosecutors, the equivalent of the state counsels in Kenya), Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby was found guilty for lying to the grand jury, and Wolfowitz is now seen to be more corrupt than the most corrupted African and third world leaders and is fighting to keep his job.
“We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement—that’s the kindest word I can give you—of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war,”
The Bush’s house of cards seems to falling apart. His Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is in trouble for lying on his act of firing the eight US Attorneys (federal prosecutors, the equivalent of the state counsels in Kenya), Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby was found guilty for lying to the grand jury, and Wolfowitz is now seen to be more corrupt than the most corrupted African and third world leaders and is fighting to keep his job.
Then there is the story of two prominent Republican congressmen, Duke Cunningham (California) and Bob Ney (Ohio) both serving federal jail sentences on separate corruption charges. Former powerful Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay resigned his position and from the Congress and still is facing corruption charges.
Talk of the Bush White House can’t wait for their term to end sooner rather than later. They have two more years before the end of their term and they know they are now under the microscopic eye of the Democratic controlled Congress. No more rubber stamp legislature for the one time “imperial presidency”.
Talk of the Bush White House can’t wait for their term to end sooner rather than later. They have two more years before the end of their term and they know they are now under the microscopic eye of the Democratic controlled Congress. No more rubber stamp legislature for the one time “imperial presidency”.
SUNDAY TIMES
http://www.timesnews.co.ke/06may07/editorials/bscripts.html
No comments:
Post a Comment