This is my Serious Face
Bush addresses the liars who say his administration “cooked” pre-war intelligence.
While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s judgments related to Iraq’s weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein.
They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: ‘When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.’ That’s why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.
The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our Nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.
Democrats respond:
However, there’s been steadily growing evidence that the Bush administration suppressed official dissents about the WMD evidence before the war, and the fact that we now know this seems like a pretty good reason for even the most patriotic among us to suspect that Bush did, in fact, mislead the American public.
Kevin Drum: November 11th, 2005
If this evidence exists, why aren’t the politicians who claim that Bush lied promoting it? Why isn’t the fabled “Downing Street Memo” being used to crucify him? Oh, right… because it’s not an official document, and because it doesn’t really say what you wish it did.
The incoherent Senator from Massachusetts:
Instead of providing open and honest answers about how we will achieve success in Iraq and allow our troops to begin to come home,’ Kennedy said, ‘the president reverted to the same manipulation of facts to justify a war we never should have fought.
Senator Kennedy, November 11th, 2005
The same Senator, 3 years ago:
We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.
Senator Kennedy, September 27th, 2002
Bush’s Gettysburg? I wouldn’t go that far. Just a good first step at smacking back some of the dishonest smears of the pro-war today, anti-war tomorrow left.
A little refresher course:
- Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction.
- We recovered some of those weapons (nerve gas, enriched uranium, illegal missiles).
- Saddam was supporting al Qaeda financially, and by training them in Iraq.
- Saddam operated a terrorist training camp that included an airplane for plane hijacking training.
- Saddam attacked Kuwait, we allied and defended, we won. Saddam violated the ceasefire numerous times by firing on American patrols and by possessing illegal weapons. His actions warranted a resumption of war (again, a war that he started).
