Welcome to BushLies.net
Bush Library Edition
FINALLY
The Presidency of George W. Bush has come to a close. History will conclude that the defining element of his administration was not Iraq or tax cuts, but lies and contempt for the democratic process. We are still discovering the extent of the lies, such as the discovery that the President ordered the CIA to fabricate evidence to support a war against Iraq and suppress evidence that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction or that the NSA targeted journalists and monitored their communications (the NSA was a frequent visitor to this site as well). Which is why I believe Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (of the great state of Rhode Island) hit the nail on the head when he said:
the irresponsibility and mismanagement of this Administration will go down in our history as among the darkest moments our government has witnessed. It rots the very fiber of democracy when our government is put to these uses. We do not yet know all the damage that has been done.
It is precisely because of the fact that we do not know the damage that has been done that Nicholas Kristof is right in calling for a Truth Commission.
For six years, I have attempted to catalog the countless lies and deceits of this administration (albeit sporadically and only on a high level after the 2004 election) and have been appalled to find what I thought would be a limited endeavor is something that far exceeds the ability of one person or organization to document.
The Declaration of Independence provides that “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” History will long remember that during the Bush era, the White House usurped that power by routinely thwarting the people’s ability to exercise informed consent as detailed on this site’s many pages.
The Bush Era Comes to a Close
Read Suskind Interview Transcripts
Iraq War Report - 935 Lies
Scotty McClellan: "the Iraq war was not necessary"
The Big Ones
ON THIS PAGE: THE BIG LIES
IRAN
DOMESTIC SPY PROGRAM
IRAQ
9/11, WAR ON TERROR & TORTURE
KATRINA
DOMESTIC POLICY
IRAQ
In the September/October Columbia Journalism Review, David Greenberg cited BushLies.net as among the few columnists and Web sites that "framed the [Niger] uranium deceptions as part of the President's familiar M.O., which was to utter untruths with such nonchalance that no one could possibly believe he was deliberately lying.” The three reports below also are excellent resources to explore the many lies that fueled a campaign to invade Iraq. While the reports do have the benefit of some postwar data and intelligence, much of the information was available to the administration, Congress and the press before the war started as illustrated by the following article Could a Google Search Have Helped Prevent the War in Iraq?
MoJones: Iraq Lie by Lie
Iraq on the Record
Intel. Cmt. Report on Prewar Claims on Iraq WMDs
LIE(S)
LIE(S)
FACTS
WITHDRAWING TROOPS FROM IRAQ
(a) Will Withdraw if Asked
President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday asked him to do so, but that he expected Iraq's first democratically elected leaders would want the troops to remain as helpers, not as occupiers. . . . But asked if, as a matter of principle, the United States would pull out of Iraq at the request of a new government, he said: "Absolutely. This is a sovereign government. They're on their feet."
(b) Iraqi's Oppose Withdrawal Timetable
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Could you characterize the worry you heard from Iraqi leaders about U.S. troop levels that you first mentioned on the flight home from Iraq? And here in the Rose Garden a week ago, you said that Zarqawi's death is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide in this struggle. After your visit, do you truly believe that the tide is turning in Iraq?
THE PRESIDENT: First part of the question? I'm sorry.
Q About the worry that you --
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. No question, there are concerns about whether or not the United States will stand with this government. And I can understand why. You know, ours is a society that encourages debate and people are free to express themselves. And they do so; they say, look, this is my view of how we ought to go forward, this is what I think. And the willingness of some to say that if we're in power we'll withdraw on a set timetable concerns people in Iraq, because they understand our coalition forces provide a sense of stability, so they can address old wrongs and develop their strategy and plan to move forward. They need our help and they recognize that. And so they are concerned about that.
Rose Garden Press Conference (June 14, 2006)
The Bush administration has ignored repeated requests to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops.
June 2005: Eighty two Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum have pressed for the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops from their country. The Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and communist legislators made the call in a letter sent by Falah Hassan Shanshal of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest bloc in parliament, to speaker Hajem Al-Hassani, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). “We have asked in several sessions for occupation troops to withdraw. Our request was ignored,” read the latter, made public on Sunday, June 19.
November 2005: Leaders of Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish majority and Sunni minority call for the withdrawal of foreign troops "according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation" and end terror attacks
June 2006: When George Bush visited Baghdad on June 13, Iraq's vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, asked him for a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. The following day, President Jalal Talabani released a statement expressing his support for the vice-president’s request. Then in an op-ed in the Washington Post on June 20, Mowaffak al-Rubbaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, called for a significant reduction in US troops this year, with most leaving next year. “We envisage the US troop presence by year’s end to be under 100,000, with most of the remaining troops to return home by the end of 2007,” wrote Dr. Al-Rubbaie. Al-Rubaie said that Iraqis now see foreign troops as occupiers rather than the liberators, and that their removal will strengthen the fledgling government by legitimizing it in the eyes of the Iraqi people.
Asked about the article by the Financial Times, the State Department official reaffirmed the US position that withdrawal would be based on conditions, not timelines. The Bush administration’s refusal to set a timeline for withdrawal puts it on a collision course with the Iraqi government, which is increasing trying to “gain its independence from the United States,” as Dr. Al-Rubbaie said in his op-ed.
IRAQ AS IMMINENT THREAT The Bush administration repeatedly claimed that Iraq presented an imminent threat to the US and its allies, although it would later claim:
On January 27, 2004, White House spokesman Scot McClellan claimed that the administration never said Iraq was an imminent threat. "the media have chose to use the word imminent" to describe the Iraqi threat. In a February 2004 speech at Georgetown University, CIA Director Tenet revealed that CIA "analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war.
In terms of the administration claims it never said or suggested an imminent threat, below are a sample of such comments:
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (09.19.02)
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." President Bush (09.26.02)
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . It has developed weapons of mass death" President Bush (10.02.02)
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." President Bush (10.02.03)
"There are many dangers in the world; the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. President Bush (10.07.02)
"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace." President Bush (10.16.02)
"There is a real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to America in the form of Saddam Hussein." President Bush (10.28.02)
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq." President Bush (11.01.02)
"Today the world is...uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq." President Bush (11.01.02)
"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands." President Bush (11.23.02)
In January 2003, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, when asked “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests”; he replied “Well, of course he is.”
In February 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said “[t]his is about [an] imminent threat.”
In May 2003, Ari Fleisher was asked “Didn’t we go to war because we said WMD’s were a direct and imminent threat to the U.S?” He responded, “Absolutely.”
The director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research stated that "Iraq possessed no imminent threat to either its neighbors or to the United States."
A January 2004 report by the Army War College concluded that Iraq was not an imminent threat and characterized the war as "an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deferred Iraq."
The Carnegie Endowment for Peace's report on WMD's in Iraq also concluded that Iraq did not pose an immediate threat to the United States or to global security.
Sources: Daily Mis-Lead 02.05.04; Rivers-Pitt – Truthout.org 07.11.03, McGovern –AlterNet 06.30.03, NBC News 07.21.03, Krugman – New York Times 07.22.03; WMD in Iraq – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Bounding the Global War on Terror – Army War College.Daily Mis-Lead 01.28.04, CAP Daily Progress Report 01.29.04
IRAQ & 9/11
The Bush administration repeatedly has constantly tried to link Iraq to the September 11th attacks. In fact, Bush submitted the following certification to Congress to authorize the use of force against Iraq:
I have reluctantly concluded, along with other coalition leaders, that only the use of armed force will accomplish these objectives and restore international peace and security in the area. I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organiza-tions, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. United States objectives also support a transition to democracy in Iraq, as contemplated by the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338).
Vice President Cheney, however, continues to make the link.
Q: Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established?
CHENEY: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq. The sectarian violence that we see now, in part, has been stimulated by the fact of al Qaeda attacks intended to try to create conflict between Shia and Sunni.
Watch the entire interview HERE
Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9-11 Commission found “no credible evidence of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.” The Commission stressed that “it had access to the same information [that Vice President Cheney] has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks.” This finding led Jon Stewart to quip, “Mr. Vice President, it’s my duty to inform you that your pants are on fire.” (1)
At the same time as the release of the 9-11 Report, a former Bush intelligence official revealed that the White House knew there was no basis for the link. Former State Dept. intelligence official Greg Thielman stated that the intelligence agencies agreed on the “lack of a meaningful connection to Al Qaeda” and reported this to the White House.” The CIA, FBI and British intelligence have found no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. One FBI official stated that “[w]e’ve been looking at this hard for more than a year and . . . we just don’t think its there.” British intelligence reports that Hussein and fundamentalist Bin Laden are ideological enemies. (2) The director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research dismissed the alleged link, claiming that the Bush administration “has had a faith based intelligence attitude.” (3)
In September 2003, Bush finally admitted that there was “no evidence” linking Iraq to 9-11. (4).
Of course, that did not stop Vice Presidednt Cheney. Cheney should read the Senate Intelligence Committee's report which found:
Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and…the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi. [p. 109]
Sources: (1) Marquis – New York Times 01.09.04; Sirota & Harvey – In These Times 08.03.04; CAP Progress Report 07.07.04; (2) Risen & Johnston - New York Times 02.02.03, BBC News 05.03.03, AP – Washington Times 07.12.03, Waterman – UPI 07.23.03, Gilliard – Daily Kos 07.25.03; (3) Rivers-Pitt – Truthout.org 07.11.03, McGovern –AlternNet 06.30.03, NBC News 07.21.03, Krugman – New York Times 07.22.03; (4) Corn – The Nation 09.15.03, Washington - Boston Globe 09,18.03, Daily Mis-Lead 09.23.03
WMDs
The Bush administration religiously chanted the contention that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction as its basis for a war.
For example, in his address to the nation Bush said the intelligence “leaves no doubt that . . . Iraq . . . continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” Vice President Cheney also was part of the chorus and declared that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
The absence of WMDs did not prevent the administration from claiming they had found them.
BUSH: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. [Bush on Polish TV, 5/29/03]
POWELL: We have already discovered mobile biological factories of the kind that I described to the Security Council on the 5th of February. We have now found them. There is no question in our mind that that’s what their purpose was. Nobody has come up with an alternate purpose that makes sense. [Powell, 6/2/03]
WOLFOWITZ: We — as the whole world knows — have in fact found some significant evidence to confirm exactly what Secretary Powell said when he spoke to the United Nations about the development of mobile biological weapons production facilities that would seem to confirm fairly precisely the information we received from several defectors, one in particular who described the program in some detail. [Wolfowitz, 6/3/03]
RICE: But let’s remember what we’ve already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that–dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described. … This was a program that was built for deceit and concealment. [CNBC, 6/3/03]
JOHN BOLTON: And I think the presentation that Secretary Powell made to the Security Council some months ago, which he worked on day and night for four or five days before going up to New York, is actually standing up very well to the test of reality as we learn more about what was going on inside Iraq. He explained to the Security Council and, indeed, showed diagrams of mobile biological weapons production facilities. We have already found two such laboratories. [Testimony before House International Relations Committee, 6/4/03]
BUSH: We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. [Bush, 6/5/03]
POWELL: I reviewed that presentation that I made on the 5th of February a number of times, as you might imagine, over recent weeks, and it holds up very well. It was the solid, coordinated judgment of the intelligence community. Some of the things that I talked about that day we have now seen in reality. We have found the mobile biological weapons labs that I could only show cartoons of that day. We now have them. [NBC Today Show, 6/30/03]
CHENEY: We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We’ve, since the war, found two of them. They’re in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack. [Meet the Press, 9/14/03]
(Center for American Progress)
The 2006 Senate Intelligence Committee report found that:
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq's acquisition of high-strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" from Africa.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that "Iraq has biological weapons.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq possessed, or ever developed, mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq "has chemical weapons" or "is expanding its chemical industry to support chemical weapons."
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq likely retained covert SCUD SRBMs.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq and developed a program for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to deliver biological agents.
Similarly, the CIA’s Duelfer’s Report Iraq concluded that Iraq:
HAD NO WMD’s.
“had no . . . strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions” ended
Iraq failed “to acquire long range Iraq’s nuclear program ended in 1991 following the Gulf War.”
“Iraq unilaterally destroyed is undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter.”
In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq possessed, or was developing BW agent product systems mounted on road vehicles or railway wagons.”
This is consistent with pre-war findings:
Former Treasury Secretary O’Neil, who was a member of the National Security Council, indicated that “
n the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction.”
In January 2004, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report on WMDS in Iraq concluded that the evidence prior to the war indicated that Iraq’s nuclear program had been dismantled and its chemical weapons had lost most of their lethality. In addition, the report concluded that the administration “systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programs”.
In September 2002, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency concluded “there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has – or will – establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.”
The Washington Post reported an explosive story that a secret, fact-finding team of scientists and engineers sponsored by the Pentagon determined in May 2003 that two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops were not evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program. The nine-member team “transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003.” Despite having authoritative evidence that the biological laboratories claim was false, the administration continued to peddle the myth over the next four months. (Center for American Progress)
Sources: Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD; Ruben Bannerjee – Al Jazeera 04.06.03, NOW Update 05.22.03, Scheer – AlterNet.org 06.10.03; WMD in Iraq – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; 60 Minutes 01.11.14; Dreyfus & Vest – Mother Jones Jan-Feb 04; Suskind – The Price of Loyalty.
CONGRESS HAD SAME PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE During his Veteran’s Day 2005 address, Bush charged that “ . . more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. " The Washington Post extensively analyzed this claim, concluding that: “Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were ependent on the administration to provide the material…Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country. In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release.” (Washington Post, 11/13/05) See http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=sr-109-1-129
This was confirmed by a Congressional Research Service report which found that the “President, and a small number of presidentially-designated Cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President (3) - in contrast to Members of Congress (4) - have access to a far greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods.”
TROOP LEVELS
Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the number of troops in Iraq is not a decision I make. This is a decision that's made by the military commanders. [Retired] Gen. [Tommy R.] Franks, Gen. [John P.] Abizaid, Gen. [George W.] Casey [Jr.] have decided what those numbers are.
And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops. President Bush (11/04/04)
In fact, substantial evidence suggests that in developing the war plan Rumsfeld rejected the advice of top military commanders who warned that more troops would be necessary to secure postwar Iraq. And even after the end of "major combat operations," Rumsfeld reportedly squelched requests from military commanders -- as well as L. Paul Bremer III, who headed the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority until the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004 -- for more troops.
Tommy Franks, the former commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), has acknowledged that he felt more troops were needed in Iraq. He wrote in his recent book American Soldier (Regan, 2004) that he projected that 250,000 troops would be required to secure postwar Iraq, as he acknowledged in an August 16, 2004, appearance on CNN's Paula Zahn Now.
In an October 17, 2004, article on the Bush administration's Iraq policy, Knight Ridder reported that Rumsfeld successfully opposed higher troop levels that military planners thought were necessary. The article found that "[t]he administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country." The article explained: Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld's opening bid was about 40,000, "a division-plus," said three senior military officials who participated in the discussions. Bush and his top advisers finally approved the 250,000 troops the commanders requested to launch the invasion. But the additional troops that the military wanted to secure Iraq after Saddam's regime fell were either delayed or never sent.
Most famously, in February 2003, a few weeks before the invasion began, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, now retired, told Congress that "omething on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers ... would be required" to stabilize postwar Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz rejected this claim, insisting that he was "reasonably certain that they [the Iraqis] will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep [troop] requirements down." Rumsfeld shared Wolfowitz's optimism. "Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war. He also said 'the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark,' " [CNN, 3/3/03].
Similarly, though he is not a military commander, Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority, stated in October 2004 that "We never had enough troops on the ground." Rumsfeld maintained lower troop levels than commanders wanted during the post-invasion period. According to a February 7 article in Newsweek, Rumsfeld has effectively rejected at least one postwar appeal already, from Abizaid and other military commanders.
The April 12, 2004 New York Daily News reported that Abizaid "has been repeatedly discouraged from asking for more soldiers," according to a "senior military official." The article further quoted that official: "Rumsfeld has made it clear to the whole building that he wasn't interested in getting any requests for more troops."
Following the death of 19 Marines from the same unit in an ambush attack, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editors commented: There may be a lesson as well as sorrow in the tragic deaths of 19 Marines from the same Ohio unit last week. Their Marine regiment had been asking for more troops for months, . . . . President Bush said June 28, "If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them." The generals reporting to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently cater to his desire to hold down troop numbers. So, if the generals don't ask, Rumsfeld doesn't tell the president, giving Bush a kind of plausible fiction. It's no wonder Americans have grown more skeptical of Bush's words (Media Matters 06/28/05, Seattle Post Intelligencer (08/09/05)
DOMESTIC SPY PROGRAM
LIE(S)
FACTS
Neccessary Following 9/11. "President determined it was necessary following September 11 to create an early warning detection system. FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required for the early warning detection system." Department of Justice 12/22/05 letter to House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The program was not established on or after 9/11 but rather on Day 11 of the Bush Administration - 7 months before 9/11. The NSA has assembled "the largest database in the world" containing detailed records of all calls made by customers of AT&T and participating carriers.
"What's really disturbing is that some of those people the vice president was curious about were people who worked at the White House or the State Department," one former counterterrorism official said. "There was a real feeling of paranoia that permeated from the vice president's office and I don't think it had anything to do with the threat of terrorism. I can't say what was contained in those taps that piqued his interest. I just don't know."
Subject to a Warrant and/or No Time For Warrants.
During the 2004 campaign, Bush claimed “Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.” See video.
Once the story broke, however, the administration then claimed that it could not wait to get a warrant because it needed ”to move quickly to detect" plotting of terrorism between people in the United States and abroad. (President Bush 12/19/05)
Alternatively, the administration argued that Congress had given the administration the authority to do so in its September 11th resolution.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the President to seek a warrant up to 3 days AFTER initiating the wiretap. The President never sought any such authority after the fact for this program.
The administration requested the ability to conduct warrantless searches as part of the September 11th resolution, but Congress rejected this. In fact, Gonzales admitted that he was told by "certain members of Congress" that "that would be difficult if not impossible.”
Other Arguments. The administration has alternatively claimed that the program is limited in nature but vital to the war on terror and could have prevented 9/11 had it been in place; while also claiming other Presidents had similar authority. (1) Limited in Nature. "The truth is that after 9/11, the "stream" of information from the NSA to the FBI "soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month." Investigators were overwhelmed by the amount of information pouring into their offices. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration," said one former FBI official. To day's revelations support a previous New York Times report that found the "volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged." NSA whistleblower Russell Tice recently told ABC News "the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions."
(2) Vital to the War on Terror, Could Have Prevented 9/11. A New York Times report debunks the administration's claim that the program is vital to America's national security. In fact, the flood of "unfiltered information" from the NSA program "was swamping [FBI] investigators" in the months after 9/11. "There were no imminent plots - not inside the United States," a former F.B.I. official said. "The information was so thin," one prosecutor said, "and the connections were so remote, that they never led to anything, and I never heard any follow-up." Additionally, "some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy."
As Media Matters explains "the 9-11 Commission and congressional investigators reportedly reached a very different conclusion: that the Bush administration had information on two of the 9-11 hijackers well over a year before the attacks occurred, and it was primarily bureaucratic problems -- rather than a lack of information -- that were responsible for the security breakdown.
According to a January 24 Washington Post article, Cheney and Hayden "did not mention that the NSA, CIA and FBI had significant information about two of the leading hijackers as early as January 2000 but failed to keep track of them or capitalize on the information, according to the Sept. 11 commission and others." The article went on to note that Hayden "also did not mention NSA intercepts warning of the attacks the day before, but not translated until Sept. 12, 2001."
This argument ultimately fails because the program stared before 9/11.
(3) Other Presidents Had the Authority. FISA was only enacted in 1978, so what prior Presidents did is irrelevant since after 1978 the President had to comply with FISA.
See ACLU, NSA Spying on Americans is Illegal (12/29/2005); Media Matters for America, Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal (12/23/05); The Progress Report (1/17/06)
When all else fails . . . bring in the strawman.
"One hundred and seventy-seven of the opposition party said, 'You know, we don't think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists,' " Bush said at a 2006 fundraiser for Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) before heading to Colorado for gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.
Asked about the president's statement, White House aides could not name any Democrat who has said that the government should not listen in on terrorists. Democrats who voted against the legislation had complained that it would hand too much power to the president and had said that they wanted more checks in the bill to protect civil liberties. (Washington Post)
Bush's language, though, characterizes Democratic positions through his own prism. Critics of the surveillance program have not argued against listening to terrorist phone calls but say the government should get warrants from a secret intelligence court. Likewise, many critics of the tribunal measure did not oppose interrogating prisoners generally, as Bush said, but specific provisions of the bill, such as denying the right of habeas corpus or giving the president freedom to authorize what they consider torture. (Washington Post)
See also "Bush's Imaginary Foes" , "The President and the Straw Man" and "Bush Lies and Knows He's Lying".
IRAQN
LIE(S)
FACTS
“So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.” [Bush, 10/17/07]
“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. … The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.” [Cheney, 10/21/07]
“The problem is Iran, and Iran has not stepped back from trying to pursue a nuclear weapon, and — or reprocessing and enriching uranium, which would lead to a nuclear weapon.” [White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, 10/26/07]
“We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace.” [Bush, 11/7/07]
“We’re in a position now, clearly, especially when we look at Iran, where it’s very, very important we succeed in our efforts, our national security efforts, to discourage the Iranians from enriching uranium and producing nuclear weapons.” [Cheney, 11/9/07]
“We are convinced that they are developing nuclear weapons.” [Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, 11/13/07]
Despite Knowledge That Iran Halted Nuke Program, White House Continued To Warn Of False Threat, Think Progress (12/3/07)
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in December 2007 concluded that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It adds that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007,” and the country is “less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”
The assessment, which relies on data collected through Oct. 31, was reportedly completed in 2006, but was blocked by administration officials who wanted it to be more in line with Vice President Cheney’s hardline views.
As The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum notes, the NIE’s “basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House” at least by last year, when the document was finished.
9/11, War on Terror and Torture
LIE(S)
FACTS
FOILED TERRORIST PLOTS
In his October 6th speech on the War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush said”The United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three al Qaeda plots to attack inside the United States.
The West Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot to attack targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked airplanes. The plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in planning the events of 9/11.
The East Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2003 the U.S. and a partner disrupted a plot to attack targets on the East Coast of the United States using hijacked commercial airplanes.
The Jose Padilla Plot: In May 2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot that involved blowing up apartment buildings in the United States. One of the plotters, Jose Padilla, also discussed the possibility of using a "dirty bomb" in the U.S.
Most recently, Bush has claimed that "aggressive interrogation techniques" have thwarted terrorist attacks. In his September 6 speech, Bush announced that 14 high-level suspected terrorists had been transferred from CIA prisons to the Pentagon's detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Bush talked at length about the information gleaned from one of the prisoners, Abu Zubaydah, whom the United States captured in March 2002. Bush described him as a "senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden" and declared that Zubaydah had given the United States information that "turned out to be quite important." From the speech:
BUSH: After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal information -- and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in fact, the "nominal" information he gave us turned out to be quite important. For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- or KSM -- was the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks and used the alias "Mukhtar." This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM.
The claim that Zubaydah identified KSM's moniker also appeared in a document summarizing the CIA's "High Value Detention Program" released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on September 6. Bush further claimed in the speech that Zubaydah "provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured" KSM.
In the September 6 speech, Bush similarly claimed that the CIA's interrogation of Zubaydah led to the arrest of Al Qaeda lieutenant Ramzi bin al-Shibh:
BUSH: Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks -- a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh. The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh.
In his speech, Bush presented the information extracted from Zubaydah as evidence that the CIA interrogation program "has saved lives; of why it remains vital to the security of the United States, and our friends and allies; and why it deserves the support of the United States Congress and the American people." Bush claimed that when the CIA interrogated Zubaydah using these "tough" procedures, "he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives."
The plots that Bush claimed his administration disrupted actually had already been abandoned by the time they were discovered.
1. West Coast Airliner Plot. When the plot was disclosed last year, authorities said publicly that they had viewed the claims by captured Al Qaeda chieftain Khalid Shaikh Mohammed with skepticism. They said that, at best, the alleged plot was something that had been discussed but never put into action. By the time anybody knew about it, the threat — if there had been one — had passed, federal counter-terrorism officials said Friday. To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous," said one senior FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with departmental guidelines. [LA Times 10/7/05]
2. East Coast Airliner Plot - Lyman Faris. Faris was an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty in June 2003 to two felony charges of supporting a foreign terrorist organization. He was charged with plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, but U.S. officials admitted that Faris had abandoned the plot because he deemed it unlikely to succeed. “After scouting the bridge and deciding its security and structure meant the plot was unlikely to succeed, he passed along a message to al Qaeda in early 2003 that said ‘the weather is too hot.’” [CNN, 6/19/03]
3. Jose Padilla. “Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld’s deputy, stressed on Monday that ‘there was not an actual plan’ to set off a radioactive device in America and Padilla had not begun trying to acquire materials. Intelligence officials said his research had not gone beyond surfing the internet.” Since being detained in O’Hare airport in 2002, Padilla has not been charged with any crime or permitted to talk to a lawyer. [Daily Telegraph, 12/06/02; Washington Post, 9/10/05]
Media Matters disects Bush's September 6th speech in detail. A September 7 article by Post staff writers Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer noted that the CIA had, in fact, learned KSM's alias as early as August 2001.
A September 7 by staff writers Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer noted that the CIA had, in fact, learned KSM's alias as early as August 2001.
What the DNI documents also do not mention is that the CIA had identified Mohammed's nickname in August 2001, according to the Sept. 11 commission report. The commission found that the agency failed to connect the information with previous intelligence identifying Mukhtar as an al-Qaeda associate plotting terrorist attacks, and identified that failure as one of the crucial missed opportunities before Sept. 11.
Indeed, the 9-11 Commission report disclosed that the CIA unit tasked with finding bin Laden had connected KSM to the alias "Mukhtar" on August 28, 2001.
The final piece of the puzzle arrived at the CIA's Bin Ladin unit on August 28 in a cable reporting that KSM's nickname was Mukhtar. No one made the connection to the reports about Mukhtar that had been circulated in the spring. This connection might also have underscored concern about the June reporting that KSM was recruiting terrorists to travel, including to the United States.
Ron Suskind documents in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006), how the CIA was in the dark regarding KSM's location until a $25 million reward led an Al Qaeda operative to tip them off. At the end of February 2003 that changed. The CIA got what various officials at Langley called a "walk-in." He was a man who was moving through the al Qaeda ranks, moving in and out of various operations in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and Rawalpindi, an old Silk Road trading post that is now a city of 3 million. He contacted CIA, which has one of its largest stations -- with nearly fifty agents -- in Islamabad. Suskind goes on to detail KSM's capture the following morning.
A September 8 article, New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti took issue with Bush's assertion that Zubaydah "identified" bin al-Shibh. Mazzetti noted that U.S. authorities had been aware of bin al-Shibh's involvement in the 9-11 attacks by December 2001.2001.
American officials had identified Mr. bin al-Shibh's role in the attacks months before Mr. Zubaydah's capture. A December 2001 federal grand jury indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, said that Mr. Moussaoui had received money from Mr. bin al-Shibh and that Mr. bin al-Shibh had shared an apartment with Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the plot. Indeed, the indictment states that bin al-Shibh "shared an apartment" with Atta in 1998 and 1999, and that he repeatedly wired money to the 9-11 hijackers in 2000 and 2001.
Further, Bush's claim that Zubaydah "helped lead to the capture" of bin al-Shibh is contradicted by Suskind's reporting. In The One Percent Doctrine, Suskind describes how information gleaned from an Al Jazeera reporter and the Emir of Qatar provided crucial leads regarding his location. The reporter, Yosri Fouda, had interviewed KSM and bin al-Shibh in a safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, on April 19, 2002, and subsequently informed the Emir of the likely whereabouts of the two Al Qaeda lieutenants. The Emir in turn disclosed this information to then-CIA director George Tenet and, on September 11, 2002, the CIA stormed the safe house and captured bin al-Shibh.
In a September 6 interview on Salon.com regarding Bush's speech, Suskind noted that the Emir -- not Zubaydah -- had provided the "key break" that led the CIA to bin al-Shibh:
That was the key break in getting those guys. KSM slipped away; in June of 2002, the Emir of Qatar passed along information to the CIA as to something that an Al Jazeera reporter had discovered as to the safehouse where KSM and bin al Shibh were hiding in Karachi slums. He passed that on to the CIA, and that was the key break. Whether Zubaydah provided some supporting information is not clear, but the key to capturing those guys was the help of the Emir.
But Suskind reports in The One Percent Doctrine that the CIA's harsh techniques -- Zubaydah was "water-boarded," "beaten," "repeatedly threatened," "bombarded with deafening, continuous noise," and deprived of his medication -- only led him to disclose a variety of apparently nonexistent plots. Suskind went on to note that the only valuable information gleaned from Zubaydah came when the CIA switched to non-physical tactics. When asked about Bush's characterization of the interrogation of Zubaydah during the Salon.com interview, Suskind confirmed that "we got the stuff of value" through milder tactics.
9/11 WARNINGS
In her public testimony before the 9-11 commission, Dr. Rice stated: “I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons.”
After the attacks, Ari Fleischer stated that the President had no warnings of an attack and President Bush explained
“[n]ever [in] anybody’s thought processes . . . did we ever think that the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets . . . never.”
In May 2002, Condoleezza Rice claimed, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.” (05.16.02)
Dr. Rice: “[W]e received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists.” (03.22.04)
President Bush: “Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us. I would have used very resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.” (03.25.04)
Surprisingly, Bush reiterated this comment at an April 13 press conference. “[T]here was nobody in our government, at least, and I don’t think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings.”
July 2001 Warning
Condoleezza Rice describes her briefing with CIA officials George Tenet and Cofer Black on July 10, 2001 as relatively unremarkable. Here’s how her spokesman Sean McCormack described it :
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack [said]… the information Rice got “was not new'’ and didn’t amount to an urgent warning. “Rather, it was a good summary from the threat-reporting from the previous several weeks,'’ McCormack said in a statement from Saudi Arabia where Rice is traveling.
Earlier in the day, Rice questioned whether the meeting even happened and said that it was “incomprehensible” the meeting included a warning that U.S. interests faced an imminent threat from al-Qaeda.
Dr. Rice admitted privately to the 9-11 panel that she had “misspoken” when she said there were no prior warnings, but then proceeded to repeat this claim in public.
The warnings received (see below) were sufficient for Attorney General Ashcroft to begin “traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines” because of what the Justice Department called “a threat assessment.” The Justice Department has yet to release this “threat assessment.”
Sibel Edmonds, a translator with the FBI, indicates "that it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack."
“President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away. (22)
Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport."
Bush received an August 6, 2001 memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” which mentioned bin Laden’s desire and capability to strike the US possibly using hijacked airplanes. The CIA warned that bin Laden will launch an attack against the US and/or Israel in the coming weeks that “will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests.”
The Bush administration prevented the release of details of the August 6th briefing in the report issued by the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the 9-11 attack.
Also that spring and summer intelligence reports indicated that
(i) Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out”;
(ii) there was a threat to assassinate Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit using an airplane stuffed with explosives;
(iii) al-Qaeda was planning an attack using multiple airplane hijackings; and
(iv) that bin Laden was in advanced stages of executing a significant operation within the US.
This was included in reports entitled “Bin Laden planning multiple operations,” “Bin Laden’s network’s plan advancing,” and “Bin Laden threats are real” which warned of catastrophic damage.
The CIA’s National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise in which a small corporate jet would crash into an office tower following equipment failure for the morning of September 11th.
In February 2001, the Hart-Rudman report warned that “mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern” and that the US was woefully unprepared for a “catastrophic” domestic terrorist attack.
President Bush refused to act on this report, preferring to await the findings of Cheney’s terrorist task force which failed to even meet before 9-11. The Bush administration prevented the release of details of the August 6 briefing in the report issued by the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the 9-11 attack.
Sources: (1) The Left Coaster 07.14.03, Waterman – UPI 07.23.03, Priest – Washington Post 07.25.03, Dean – Findlaw.com 07.29.03, Ridgeway – Village Voice 07.31.03, Franken – Lies And The Liars Who Tell Them, Daily Mis-Lead 03.11.04, Center for American Progress Fact Sheet 03.22.04, Progress Report 03.26.04, Rice – Washington Post 03.22.04, Progress Report 03.26.04, Daily Mis-Lead 04.14.04; Lumpkin – Associated Press 10.28.03; CAP Fact Sheets 04.08.04
Rice July 2001 Warning
Here’s how the briefing was described by the officials who prepared it, according to McClatchy:
One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a “10 on a scale of 1 to 10″ that “connected the dots” in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again…
“The briefing was intended to `connect the dots’ contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden,” said the official, who described the tone of the report as “scary.”
TORTURE
We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." - President Bush (Nov. 7, 2005).
The State Department's annual report on human rights practices worldwide has condemned countries such as Burma and North Korea for the disappearance and indefinite detention of political prisoners without trial; while also condemning Libya, Syria and other countries for engaging in acts of torture that include hooding, stripping detainees naked, sleep deprivation, subjecting detainees to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light, threatening them with dogs, submerging them in water to simulate drowning — which is known as water-boarding — and other acts of physical abuse all of which have occured at U.S. detention facilities. See State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners: Rumself Approved Similar Practices (Washington Post March 10, 2005).
Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices
In addition, post-World War II Japanese war crimes tribunals found that both the Japanese soldiers engaging in water-boarding and the officers who approved it were guilty of war crimes.
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GUANTANAMO DETAINEES & ABUSE
These are people picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan. They weren't wearing uniforms . . . but were there to kill. (President Bush 06/20/05)
These detainees are dangerous enemy combatants . . . They were picked up on the battlefield, fighting American forces, trying to kill American forces. (Scott McClellan 06/21/05)
The people that are there are people we picked up on the battlefield, primarily in Afghanistan. They're terrorists. They're bomb makers. They're facilitators of terror. They're members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban....We've let go those that we've deemed not to be a continuing threat. But the 520-some that are there now are serious, deadly threats to the United States. (Vice President Cheney 06/23/05)
These are people, all of whom were captured on a battlefield. They're terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin Laden's] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11 hijacker. (Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 06/27/05)
Concerns about abuse at Guantanamo are based on allegations made by "people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble [sic]." President Bush (05/31/05)
Defense Department Data. Counsel for the detainees released a report based entirely on the Defense Department's own data which found:
1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.
2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably. Eight percent are detained because they are deemed "fighters for;" 30% considered "members of;" a large majority - 60% -- are detained merely because they are "associated with" a group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist group is unidentified.
Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.
National Journal Review of Defense Department Filings in Habeas Petitions. National Journal reviewed the transcripts for 314 Gitmo prisoners and found the following:
A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill American forces" (as McClellan claimed).
Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.
Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.
The majority were not captured by U.S. forces but rather handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability.
Seventy-five of the 132 men, or more than half the group, are -- like -- not accused of taking part in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. (The 75 include 10 detainees whom the U.S. government "no longer" considers enemy combatants, although at least eight of the 10 are still being held at Guantanamo.) Typically, documents describe these men as "associated" with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda -- sometimes directly so, and sometimes through only weak or distant connections. Several men worked for charities that had some ties to Al Qaeda; one detainee lived in a house associated with the Taliban.
Some of the "associated" men are said to have attended jihadist training camps before September 11, an accusation admitted by some and denied by others. The U.S. government says that some of the suspected jihadists trained in Afghanistan, even though other records show that they had not yet entered the country at the time of the training camps. Just 57 of the 132 men, or 43 percent, are accused of being on a battlefield in post-9/11 Afghanistan.
The government's documents tie only eight of the 132 men directly to plans for terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan.
At least eight prisoners at Guantanamo are there even though they are no longer designated as enemy combatants. One perplexed attorney, whose client does not want public attention, learned that the man was no longer considered an enemy combatant only by reading a footnote in a Justice Department motion asking a federal judge to put a slew of habeas corpus cases on hold. The attorney doesn't know why the man is still in Cuba.
The reports of abuse are not based on allegations by detainees but "accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation." The FBI agents wrote in memorandum that "they had seen female interrogators forcibly squeeze male prisoners' genitals, and that they had witnessed other detainees stripped and shackled low to the floor for many hours." Nevertheless, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said military interrogators know "that any detainees [should] be treated in a humane way, and they have been." (Center for American Progress 6/10/05)
KATRINA
LIE(S)
FACTS
I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. President Bush (09/01/05)
It really caught everybody by surprise" and was a major reason for the delay in the government's emergency response. Michael Chertoff (09/04/05)
That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight. Michael Chertoff (09/05/05)
Two Days Warning. The White House situation room received a report at 1:47 a.m. the day Katrina hit, predicting that Katrina would likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching. Two days before Katrina hit FEMA predicted that Hurricane Katrina could be worse than Hurricane Pam. [MSNBC 1/24/06]
Hurricane Pam? Responding to Bush’s comments on Meet the Press, Dr. Ivor Van Heerden of the LSU Hurricane Center “I didn’t buy that because, you know, we had discussed on numerous occasions that a worst-case scenario would be if we had one of these major hurricanes and then we lost the levee systems.” A White House advisor sat in on the “Hurricane Pam Exercise,” a computer simulation of the possible effects of a Category 3 hurricane on New Orleans. The exercise found that “…a storm like Hurricane Pam would: cause flooding that would leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation.” [Meet the Press, 9/11/05]
CNN.com noted that "officials have warned for years that a Category 4 [hurricane] could cause the levees to fail." The CNN.com article added that in an August 31 interview on CNN's Larry King Live, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael Brown said, "That Category 4 hurricane caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated. So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it." On Meet the Press, Tim Russert pointed out that the Times-Picayune published a five-part series in June 2002, in which it warned that if a large hurricane hit New Orleans, the city's levees would likely be topped or broken -- resulting in catastrophic flooding and thousands of deaths. Russert added that "last summer FEMA, who reports to you, and the LSU Hurricane Center, and local and state officials did a simulated Hurricane Pam in which the levees broke. ... Thousands drowned." (Media Matters for America 09/08/05)
Additionally, as journalist Joshua Micah Marshall noted on Talking Points Memo, National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield "talked about the force of Katrina during a video conference call to President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas" on August 28 [St. Petersburg Times, 8/30/05]. The Washington Post quoted Mayfield on September 6: "They knew that this one was different. ... I don't think Mike Brown or anyone else in FEMA could have any reason to have any problem with our calls. ... They were told ... We said the levees could be topped."
A transcript of this video conference reveals that Mayfield indicated that this was "obviously a very, very grave concern."
“What I said was not that we didn't anticipate that there's a possibility the levees will break. What I said was, in this storm, what happened is, the storm passed and passed without the levees breaking on Monday. Tuesday morning, I opened newspapers and saw headlines that said 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet,' which surprised people. What surprised them was that the levee broke overnight and the next day and, in fact, collapsed. That was a surprise." Michael Chertoff (09/04/05)
What I was referring to is this: When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, "Whew." There was a sense of relaxation. And that's what I was referring to. And I myself thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people probably over the airwaves say, "The bullet has been dodged." And that was what I was referring to. Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation at a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that...” President Bush (09/12/05)
Even accepting as true Chertoff's incredible suggestion that he -- the secretary of Homeland Security -- and the president of the United States relied on the print media for their information on the situation in New Orleans, as Think Progress points out, had administration officials "bothered to read the full text of the three articles they found with favorable headlines, they would have realized that federal government help was needed immediately." Moreover, while Chertoff did not indicate which headlines he was referring to, many newspapers -- in addition to the Times-Picayune -- did report on broken levees and significant flooding. For example, on August 30, the Los Angeles Times reported that a levee break had occurred by late morning August 29, with water from the break "spill[ing] through the area, flooding the town's two main shelters and swamping the local National Guard armory, leaving even public safety officials homeless."
Or Chertoff could have turned on the television. On the August 30 broadcast of NBC's Today, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reported at 7:05 a.m. ET, "There has been a huge development overnight ... the historic French Quarter, dry last night and it is now filling with water. This is water from nearby Lake Pontchartrain; the levees failed overnight."
Indeed, Chertoff's and Bush's professed ignorance notwithstanding, the federal government was well aware of the continuing threat of the levees breaking. Just hours after the storm passed on Monday, August 29, FEMA director Brown confirmed that the potential for catastrophic flooding remained. In an interview with Brown, NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer noted, "In New Orleans, in particular, they're worried about the levees giving way or the canals not holding, and they're worried about toxic runoff." Brown responded that even though the storm had weakened, there was still a 15- to 20-foot storm surge causing "the water out of Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf and the Mississippi continue to converge upon Louisiana." Brown added, "So we're still ready for a major disaster."
The National Weather Service issued a detailed message a day before the strike, saying buildings would be leveled, high-rises crippled and most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. In addition, and again contrary to Chertoff's claims, FEMA was most certainly warned that the levees could collapse, although even well after the levees failed, FEMA officials continued to downplay how bad the flooding might be. One said, "I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a soup bowl. That's just not happening." But in fact, it was happening. (Media Matters 09/08/05, 09/13/05)
DOMESTIC POLICY
LIE(S)
FACTS
SOCIAL SECURITY “CRISIS” "Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before. For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra $200 billion to keep the system afloat -- and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than $300 billion. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be dramatically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs."
-- 2005 State of the Union Address
“This passage contains three statements worth scrutiny. First, the statement that starting in 2018 the government "will somehow have to come up with" extra billions to stay afloat ignores the fact that there exists a substantial trust fund now invested in US treasury bonds and will make up the shortfall for several decades.
Second, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected the trust fund will be exhausted in 2052; the year 2042 is an older figure that came from the Social Security Trustees, who used a different set of economic assumptions.
Finally, even after 2052, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted the system could still pay out 80 percent of normal benefits without new taxes or borrowing.” In addition, the head of the non-partisan General Accounting Office testified before Congress that Social Security “does not face an immediate crisis”. Source: Savage, Boston Globe (02/03/05), Associated Press, Los Angeles Times (03/10/05)
BUDGET DEFICIT TRIFECTA As the budget deficit emerged; Bush assured us that the deficits would be “small and temporary”.
He also stated “I remember campaigning in Chicago and one of the reporters said, ‘Would you ever deficit spend?’ I said, ‘Only – only – in times of war, in times of economy insecurity as a result of a recession or in times of national emergency.’ Never did I dream we’d have a trifecta.’” The White House repeated this trifecta claim throughout 2002.
Bush never made such a statement in Chicago nor anywhere else during the 2000 campaign. In fact, these three caveats on deficits were stated on several occasions by Vice President Gore. Bush’s attempt to pin the deficit on the war also is a misstatement, since the cost of the Bush tax cuts is three times the cost of the response to 9-11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Source: New Republic 07.01.02
MIDDLE-CLASS” TAX CUTS Most of the tax cuts went to low and middle income Americans, and now the tax code is more fair, 20 percent of the upper income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts. The top 1/5th of earners receive 2/3rds of all benefits and the bill excluded extending the child tax credit to 4 million low income families who do not qualify. Middle class earners will receive an average cut of $162 in 2005.
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 04.14.04
PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL COST ESTIMATES
The Bush administration sold its Medicare prescription drug plan to conservatives in Congress as having a cost of $400 billion over ten years, enabling it to narrowly win passage in December 2003.
The White House knew the costs were $551 billion - more than 25 percent higher. The administration threatened to fire Medicare’s top financial analyst (Richard Foster) if he released the information. Two months after the President signed the law, the administration revised its costs estimates to $534 billion.
One month after passage of the bill, the White House revealed that the program costs actually were $534 billion - more than 25 percent higher. AARP, which worked with the administration in drafting the bill, revealed that these higher estimates were "well known in the fall" but is only now being made public. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based budget watchdog group claim Congress got "suckered by a classic financial bait-and-switch by the administration."
Source: Kemper & Simon - Los Angeles Times 01.31.04, Pugh - Knight Ridder 03.11.04, Kemper - Los Angeles Times 03.14.04, CAP Progress Report 03.15.04.
CLEAN AIR CLAIMS The Bush administration claims it has imposed “stringent new rules on power plant emissions”. The new Bush rules gutted Clean Air Act restrictions to allow utilities to avoid having to install expensive new anti-pollution equipment when they modernize their plants. The EPA’s civil enforcement chief resigned in protest, while another senior EPA lawyer wrote to Christie Whitman that the administration “seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce. A study commissioned by the administration demonstrated that current policies on power plant emissions led to the death of 24,000 people each year.
Source: Center for American Progress 12.13.03, New York Times 06.10.04
