MACS wrote:He didn't lie. He relied on bad reports from the intelligence comunity, analysts, and not just ours. France, Germany, Russia... and both sides of congress supported it. These were folks who, after 9/11, did NOT want to underestimate terrorists any more.
So the Bush lied, people died rhetoric is complete BS. He did make mistakes based on some bad information, but it isn't like the information came only from us. It didn't. And as I've said... Saddam had plenty of time to move his chemical weapons to Syria. Where'd they get that sh*t they just used?? Yeah.
So to say he deliberately lied to go to war is completely false and patently partisan.
There are many reliable reports from the intelligence community that VP Cheney, a former head of the CIA, and with plenty of clout in the intelligence world, manipulated and falsified intel supporting the WMD in Iraq argument from US and European sources. Look up "the Italian letter+Iraq's WMD". French and German intel also couldn't find sources to support that claim.
There are reliable and ignored exculpatory evidence, as indicated by the outing of a CIA agent operating in Niger, Valerie Plame, who denied the WH claim that Iraq's yellow cake was originating there.
Internal documents from neo-con think tanks, whose members included Cheney and many of Bush's trusted senior advisers, that were produced before and near the beginning of GWB's first term, and before 9/11, were waiting for a reason to go to war in the Middle East, to establish more friendly pro-West governments (regime change). to provide a safer environment for Israel, and to establish a reliable source of fossil fuels, in that order.
...so blame it on the black guy for lying...didn't Gen. Powell make the case for going to war in Iraq in a speech to the UN?
edit: for an honest and un-biased assessment of US and British intelligence reports leading up to the War in Iraq, see the Center for Strategic and International Studies, widely considered a neutral and thorough source.
https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/040126_wmdintelllesmainrpt.pdf