"Bush Lied, people died"

So says an "independent" study:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

That's reported by the Associated Press.  This isn't:

The AP reports, and the New York Times expands, on a new study by a supposedly "independent" organization that claims to have assembled hundred of "false statements" by the Bush administration in the course of the Iraq war. However, the Center for Public Integrity hardly qualifies as "independent". It gets much of its funding from George Soros, who has thrown millions of dollars behind Democratic political candidates, and explicitly campaigned to defeat George Bush in 2004.

...

Nowhere in these articles do either news organization bother to inform their reader of the partisan nature of the CPI. Besides Soros, it gets financing from the Streisand Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Los Angeles Times Foundation.

Any bets that some on my Religious Left blogroll will be linking to this study soon?

Comments

[tim]

So they didn’t bother to mention the number of times then Pres. Clinton, V.P. Gore, Sen. Kerry, Sen. Clinton, etc., etc. made the exact same statements. Hmmm… I wonder why that is?

But let’s play along, yes Bush lied. So then he sends in 130,000 troops to… prove he lied? Yes, that’s brilliant logic. Surly such an evil man would at least have a plan to plant some WMD’s to make his lie hold up.

On top of all this crap, these lunatics can’t explain the alternative end game. Would they rather have Saddam still in charge of Iraq? Ah, yes now that’s a wonderful thought. The very same losers who claim we’re haphazardly killing Iraqi civilians could care less if Saddam was still slaughtering them by the hundreds of thousands.

BTW, whatever happened to the “It’s all about the Oil” mantra? Ah, ya’ that one really held up too.

[Dan Gill]

I noticed that it was essentially the same two ideas repeated:
1. Iraq had WMDs.
2. Iraq was in bed with terrorists.

Not only the Bush administration, but virtually everyone believed both these things. The evidence pointed that way.

[salvage]

>Not only the Bush administration, but virtually everyone believed both these things. The evidence pointed that way.

Utter bullshit.

They lied America into a losing war and y'all just can't face the reality that they made suckers out of you so you keep pretending they didn't.

Hysterical.

[Morgan K Freeberg]

...except they have sources to cite, and you only have cheerleading.

[Jeff Brokaw]

I didn't read the linked articles yet, but I happen to be reading a fascinating book right now, "America's Secret War" by George Friedman, CEO of Stratfor. Just this morning I read the chapter about the runup to the war, and the decision to use WMD as a justification, even though the war was really about (among other things) forcing Saudi Arabia to fall into line about cracking down on Al Qaeda.

One main point of the discussion is really that wars are always sold to the public based on something simpler than what the classified intel says. And that this is ALWAYS the way it has to work.

It's pretty apparent to me that this is both sensible and just. What is also apparent to me is that some partisan hacks like Soros are too far gone to understand what geopolitical and military reality is all about.

[mike gibbs]

some people say Bush lied. most of them that state this are liberals. well, what do liberals care about liars? between the Clintons, Kerry, and Obama they should be well conditioned to lies.

mike

[Dave]

No matter if you think Bush lied or not. It is the biggest blunder in American History after it was proven that there was no WMD's. Sadam was no threat and could have been defeated anyway under Bush's 1st term without having us having to lose 4,000 soldiers. Korea and Iran were more a threat then Iraq. Iraq is merely a staging area for us to attack Iran and stabilize control of oil just along as we don't bother Bush's buddies the Saudis were the 9-11 terrorists originally came from and later trained in Afghanistan under former CIA buddy Bin Ladin.