Bush's Credibility
Bush’s credibility has sunk about as low as Britney Spears' career. In a bombshell (no pun intended), that effectively preempts the administration’s plans to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, America’s intelligence community released its conclusion that Iran suspended its military nuclear program sometime in 2003. The Bush administration was aware of this assessment, yet the president continued to insist that Iran was risking WWIII if it didn’t suspend its military nuclear program. Thus, the White House was forced into to the embarrassing position of having to claim: 1) the president wasn’t aware of the National Intelligence Estimate widely circulating within his own administration, or 2) acknowledge that Bush was lying (once again) to the American people. As Yogi Berra would say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Friday, December 07, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Bush vs. the Truth
If George Bush told me it was sunny and 70 degrees outside, I’d bring an umbrella and wear galoshes before going out. To put it charitably, Bush’s credibility has sunk further than a Russian submarine; it’s just not coming back. This is tragic for the United States. As Winston Churchill observed, “a democratic people can face any adversity, provided they believe their leaders are leveling with them and not living in a fool’s paradise.”
Bush has failed Churchill’s test on both counts. The administration still claims, of course, that it was duped by the same bad intelligence everyone else believed. This is disingenuous; Bush and his underlings confidently asserted there was no doubt whatsoever that Saddam possessed WMD, but the intelligence community was split on the issue.
Put simply, the Bush Administration had no basis for insisting that the case for Saddam’s alleged WMD was an open and shut case. At the very least, Bush did not exercise due diligence in vouching for cherry picked intelligence; at worst he was flat out deceitful.
Bush is so careless with the truth, however, that one has to wonder if he’s opted out of the “reality-based” community for his own Alice in Wonderland alternative universe (where up is down). For instance, at a town meeting forum, Bush claimed as one of the reasons for going to war the “fact” that Saddam kicked the weapons inspectors out of Iraq. This is false; it a matter of historical record that Bush recalled the inspectors, claiming they weren’t working. Subsequently, the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has gone on record saying that had the inspections process played out for just another two weeks the world community would have known with certainty that Saddam’s alleged WMD were non-existent.
The failure to allow the weapons inspectors to finish their job has cost countless lives. This is because U.S. forces refrained from destroying Saddam’s conventional ammo dumps for fear of setting off hidden WMD stashes, but this left stockpiles of munitions for insurgents to loot, weapons that have since been turned on American forces and Iraqi civilians. This is just one example of where the intersection of ineptness and untruth has led the Bush Administration to disaster.
