"President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows 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.
        On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
        It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it."

        In his session with journalists after a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Bush asserted incorrectly that "we gave him (Saddam) a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in.  And therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power. "

        However, his budget tried to cut more than $1 billion out of existing grants to local police/fire departments to fund this.  Then, in August of 2002, Bush rejected $150 million for grants to state and local first responders.  Bush’s decision prompted the President of the Firefighters Union to say, "President Bush, don't lionize our fallen brothers in one breath, and then stab us in the back by eliminating funding for our members to fight terrorism and stay safe."  The President of the Virginia firefighters association said,  "The president has merely been using firefighters and their families for one big photo opportunity."

        Bush visits Albuquerque to tout Even Start volunteer and mental health care:
        Under the headline "Bush lauds Albuquerque woman for volunteerism"  the AP reported on Bush’s visit to New Mexico to tout Lucy Salazar, a volunteer with the Even Start literacy program.  "One of the things I try to do when I go into communities is herald soldiers in the armies of compassion, those souls who have heard the call to love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself, and have followed through on that call; Lucy Salazar is a retired federal government worker.  She teaches reading skills to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children - incredibly important…  And oftentimes, citizens such as her never get the praise they deserve.  Lucy, thank you for coming and representing thousands of people like you."  - G. W. Bush  [04/29/02]

        According to the Associated Press, Bush proposed "to slash funding 20 percent for the Even Start program, which offers tutoring to preschoolers and literacy and job training for their parents"  – the very program he was touting in New Mexico.  [02/04/03]

        "Part of being a secure America is to encourage homeownership."  He also went on to talk about his experience meeting the residents saying, "You know, today I went to the - to some of the home - met some of the homeowners in this newly built homes and all you've got to do is shake their hand and listen to their stories and watch the pride that they exhibit when they show you the kitchen and the stairs. . .  They showed me their home.  They didn't show me somebody else's home, they showed me their home.  And they are so proud to own their home and I want to thank them for their hospitality, because it helps the American people really understand what it means."  [6/17/02]

        According to AP, "President Bush's proposed 2004 budget for the U.S.  Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced Monday, phases out HOPE VI"  the program Bush visited and touted in Atlanta. "  Renee Glover, executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority said.  ‘We didn't anticipate that HOPE VI would be eliminated.’"  [AP, 2/5/2003]

        President George W. Bush's and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists"  that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law.

        That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast.  "I don't know what he was citing,"  said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month.  "I was a little upset,"  said Moore, who said he complained to the White House.  'It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had endorsed the president's plan.  That's simply not the case.' "  2.24.03
( www.bushwatch.com )

        Bush lied about the aids funding his administration is providing, as well as its timing.  "Mr. Bush's other foreign aid initiative, announced in his State of the Union address, is $10 billion in new money to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean over five years.

        But his budget (which is supposed to DELIVER on his promise) falls short of that promise.  He is proposing only a $550 million increase over the global AIDS money in this year's spending bill now in Congress. . .  Mr. Bush's 2004 budget for the Global Fund, $200 million, actually cuts in half what Congress is likely to do in 2003.  Mr. Bush has also found part of the money for his AIDS programs by cutting nearly $500 million from child health, including vaccine programs.  Child survival is the biggest loser in the foreign aid budget "  a scandalous way to finance AIDS initiatives.  With the budget dominated by defense spending and huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the White House should not be forcing the babies of Africa to pay for their parents' AIDS drugs."  2.17.03

        "45 percent of all of the dividend income goes to people with $50,000-or-less incomes, family incomes.  Nearly three-quarters of it goes to families with $100,000 or less family income."  ( White House senior adviser Karl Rove, discussing the Bush tax proposal in a meeting with reporters, as reported by Dana Milbank in the Jan. 28 Washington Post.)

        "Not exactly.  It is true that 43.8 percent of tax returns with dividend income are from households with less than $50,000 in income and 73.8 percent of such returns are from households with less than $100,000.  But that doesn't mean the little guy earning less than $50,000 gets '45 percent of all the income' or that the Main Street earners below $100,000 get 'three-quarters' of dividend income.
        "In fact, those earning less than $50,000 get 14.7 percent of dividend income, and those earning less than $100,000 get 32.7 percent, according to a Brookings Institution / Urban Institute analysis.  The former would get 6.8 percent of the benefit of Bush's dividend plan, while the latter would get 20.9 percent." 
(Milbank, in the Jan. 28 Washington Post).

        Secretary of State Powell put his good name and reputation on the line for the Bush administration when he went before the United Nations, and the whole world and made a number of claims that have NOT been proven TRUE.

        MSNBC: "They (U.S.  & G.B.) have been the closest of allies.  But under the intense pressure of a diplomatic crisis at the United Nations and an imminent war in Iraq, the friendship between the United States and Britain is beginning to fray.  The most recent strain emerged when U.N. nuclear inspectors concluded last week that U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear program were based on forged documents.  The fake letters supposedly laid out how Iraqi agents had tried to purchase uranium from officials in Niger, central Africa."

CNN: WASHINGTON (CNN) - "Intelligence documents that U.S. and British governments said were strong evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons have been dismissed as forgeries by U.N. weapons inspectors."

MORE: www.cnn.com/2003/US
/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/index.html

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia: "The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has demonstrated that UK and US intelligence authorities relied on forged documents to support assertions that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa."

LA Times: WASHINGTON - "Phony weapons documents cited by the United States and Britain as evidence against Saddam Hussein were initially obtained by Italian intelligence authorities, who may have been duped into paying for the forgeries, U.S. officials said Friday.  The documents, which purport to show Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Niger, were exposed as fraudulent by U.N. weapons inspectors last week.  The matter has embarrassed U.S. and British officials."

MORE: www.latimes.com/la-
fg-docs15mar15,0,5016930.story

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en
&q=africa+uranium+forged+documents

        President Clinton was "impeached" for lying about performing oral sex on a willing "mistress".  But Republican hypocrites who imagined dire consequences then, now will defend THEIR President to the death!

        CNN: "Large chunks of the 19-page report - highlighted by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.N. as a "fine paper . . .   which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities"  - contains large chunks lifted from other sources, according to several academics."  The British government's dossier is 19 pages long and most of pages 6 to 16 are copied directly from that document word for word, even the grammatical errors and typographical mistakes,"  Rangwala said.  Al-Marashi's article, published last September, was based on information obtained at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, Rangwala said."
          The information he was using is 12 years old and he acknowledges this in his article.  The British government, when it transplants that information into its own dossier, does not make that acknowledgement."  So it is presented as current information about Iraq, when really the information it is using is 12 years old."

MORE: http://asia.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast
/02/07/sprj.irq.uk.dossier/

        UK Guardian: "Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material"  - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.  Amid charges of "scandalous"  plagiarism on the night when Tony Blair attempted to rally support for the US-led campaign against Saddam Hussein, Whitehall's dismay was compounded by the knowledge that the disputed document was singled out for praise by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in his speech to the UN security council on Wednesday."

MORE: http://politics.guardian.co.uk /comment
/story/0,9115,892069,00.html

http://education.guardian.co.uk /higher/
worldwide/story/0,9959,890962,00.html

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews
/207939.htm

        News Interactive: "An Iraqi drone found by UN weapons inspectors is of "very primitive"  design and is definitely not capable of flying 500km as suggested by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Jane's Defence Weekly said today."

        "On February 5, Powell told the UN Security Council that the Iraqis possessed a drone that could fly 500km, violating UN rules that limit the range of Iraqi weapons to 150km."  There is no possibility that the design shown on 12 March has the capability to fly anywhere near 500 kilometres,"  drones expert Ken Munson said on Jane's website (http://jdw.janes.com)."  The design looks very primitive, and the engines - which have their pistons exposed - appear to be low-powered,"  he said.

        Originally from the NY Times: AL TAJI, Iraq - "To hear senior Bush administration officials tell it, Iraq's latest pilotless drone has the potential to be one of Saddam Hussein's deadliest weapons, able to deliver terrifying payloads of chemical and biological warfare agents across Iraq's borders to Israel or other neighboring states.  It could even, they say, be broken down and smuggled into the United States for use in terrorist attacks.  But viewed up close yesterday by reporters hastened by Iraqi officials to the Ibn Firnas weapons plant outside Baghdad, the vehicle the Iraqis have code-named RPV-30A, for remotely piloted vehicle, looked more like something out of the Rube Goldberg museum of aeronautical design than anything that could threaten Iraq's foes.  To the layman's eye, the unveiling of the Iraqi prototype seemed to lend the crisis over Iraq's weapons an aura less of deadly threat than of farce."

        "In any case, he and other officials said, the vehicle could not be controlled from a distance of more than 5 miles, in good weather, since its controllers tracked it "with the naked eye."

MORE: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
/national/112262_drone13.shtml

        Boston Globe: "Duct tape reinforced by aluminum foil held together the black and white drone's balsa wood wings.  The wooden propellers and tiny engines were fastened to a well-worn fuselage, fashioned from the fuel tank of a larger aircraft.  The words ''God is Great'' were hand painted in red ink on both sides.  Perched on a sawhorse at a military research base 20 miles north of Baghdad, the drone looked more like a large school science project than a vehicle capable of delivering chemical and biological weapons.  Iraqi officials denied the airplane had any strategic use."

        In Bush's campaign autobiography, A Charge To Keep, he wrote that he completed pilot training in 1970 and "continued flying with my unit for the next several years."
        In 1994, he said remarked, "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment.  Not was I willing to go to Canada.  So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
        When he enlisted in the Texas Air Guard, Bush had signed a pledge stating he would complete his pilot training and then "return to my unit and fulfill my obligation to the utmost of my ability."  Instead, he received flight training - at the government's expense [estimated at about $1,000,000] - and then cut out on his unit.)

        In 2000, The Boston Globe obtained copies of Bush's military records and discovered that he had stopped flying during his final 18 months of service in 1972 and 1973.  More curious, the records showed Bush had not reported for Guard duty during a long stretch of that period.  Had the future commander-in-chief been AWOL?
        In May 1972, with two years to go on his six-year commitment to the Guard, Bush moved to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign.  He asked if he could do his Guard duty there.  This son-of-a-congressman and fighter pilot won permission to do "equivalent training"  at a unit that had no aircraft and no pilots.  The national Air Reserve office then disallowed this transfer.  For months, Bush did nothing for the Guard.  In September 1972, he won permission to train with a unit in Montgomery.  But the commander of the unit and his administrative officer told the Boston Globe that they had no recollection of Bush ever reporting for duty.  And when Bush returned to Texas after the November election, he did not return to his unit for months, according to his military records.  His annual performance report, dated May 2, 1973, noted he had "not been observed at this unit"  for the past year.  In May, June and July of that year, he did pull 36 days of duty.  And then, as he was on his way to Harvard Business School, he received permission to end his Guard service early.
        The records suggest Bush skipped out on the Guard for about a year.  (And during that time he had failed to submit to an annual physical and lost his flight status.) A campaign spokesperson said Bush recalled doing duty in Alabama and "coming back to Houston and doing duty."  But Bush never provided any real proof he had.  Asked by a reporter if he remembered what work he had done in Alabama, he said, "No, I really don't."  A fair assumption was that he had gamed the system and avoided a year of service, before wiggling out of the Guard nearly a year before his time was up.  It looked as if he had served four, not six years.

        Scowcroft says that Bush Sr.  "Incubator Untruth", Repeated Five Times, "Was Useful In Mobilizing Public Opinion" In order to promote the First War against Iraq :
        In the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.
        In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in MacArthur's book "Second Front"  and elsewhere, she described how, as a volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to die."

        Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for war passed by just five votes.  In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly atrocities"  were like "Hitler revisited."
        But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.
        Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital.  She had been coached – along with the handful of others who would "corroborate"  the story – by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.
        "We didn't know it wasn't true at the time,"  Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, said of the incubator story in a 1995 interview with the London-based Guardian newspaper.  He acknowledged "it was useful in mobilizing public opinion."  --CSM, Sept. 6, 2002