Leading Conservative Says Bush Administration Lied About WMDs

By Thomas Fleming

Last May a Republican friend asked me if I had changed my mind about the Iraq War, seeing that things were going so well. Actually, I replied, things were going just about as badly as I had imagined they would. Christians were being purged from the country, Sunnis were on the warpath, and power was being given to a coalition of anti-American Shiites and Kurds. I predicted, with absolutely nothing to go on, that when the American death toll reached the symbolic number of 2000, pro-war Democrats and even a few Republicans would begin to wonder.

In November, President Bush’s overall approval rating (in a CNN poll) dropped to 37%, and the same poll indicated that less than 50% approve of his conduct of the war on terror, and more than half think he cannot be trusted.

Trust in the President has been undermined by a series of revelations that suggest that the White House deliberately ignored or suppressed evidence that contradicted its glib generalization about weapons of mass destruction. Taking time off from running the country, Vice President Cheney condemned any such allegations “dishonest, reprehensible… cynical and pernicious falsehoods” circulated by cynical opportunists. The rhetorical overkill is a good indication that the Vice President is beginning to be fear a collapse of the house of cards the administration so carefully stacked up in advance of the Iraq invasion.

The Democrats are certainly cynical opportunists. They have been for decades, but it hardly helps Mr. Cheney’s argument. Cynical opportunists rarely chase chimaeras; they are sharks who strike when the taste the blood in the water, and their current feeding frenzy has been aroused by a string of recent stories on the suppression of prewar intelligence, secret CIA interrogation camps, and President Bush’s proposal to bomb Al Jazeera, despite the fact that this pro-Arab television station, hardly more dishonest than CNN, would be a civilian target in a friendly country (Qatar).

Democrats are not the only cynical opportunists. Republicans have been quick to seize the patriotism issue and brand any critic, war heroes included, as cowardly ad unpatriotic. Rep. John Murtha is lumped together with Michael Moore, Pat Buchanan with Ramsey Clark. The White House debate over the invasion, we are informed, had nothing to do with facts and risk assessment and everything to do with timing: The choice was between an early invasion, which would jump-start the economy, and a later invasion that would guarantee reelection. If Senators Biden and Kennedy are cynics, what can be said of Rove and Cheney.

Setting aside the opportunism displayed by both parties, sensible Americans should be asking themselves what the allegations come down to. Even forgetful Americans must remember that the only reason we went to war is because the President and his advisors assured us that they did not merely think, they knew that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and were able to identify his mobile chemical labs. Since they were wrong, they were lying when they said they knew. It is as simple as that.

If I persuade you to buy my rural property because I know that Toyota is going to buy the land to build a plant, I am a liar and a cheat if it turns out that Toyota never intended to make an offer. If I tell the jury that I can positively identify the accused as the man I saw shoot the 711 clerk and it later turns out someone else, only vaguely resembling the defendant, committed the crime, I would forever forfeit the esteem of decent people who respect law and truth. Dr. Johnson was perfectly correct in saying of a man who makes careless assertions of fact, “Sir, he lies.”

Administration spokesmen routinely portray the President and his advisers as blindsided by events, misled by incomplete intelligence reports. There are two reasons why, in the case of Cheney and Rumsfeld, I do not accept the whitewash. First, because I and many other commentators, with nothing more to go on than media propaganda, concluded—from the beginning—that the wild tales of WMD’s were absolutely incredible. Second, because we know that neoconservatives, even before the election and well before the WMD propaganda was disseminated, had decided on the invasion, and, third, because they continue to refuse to come clean with the American people: Instead of admitting their mistake, they invent new justifications. Paul Wolfowitz, as soon as the WMD story began to unravel, admitted candidly that it was merely a pretext that permitted the President to do what he (Wolfowitz, not Bush) wanted.

To understand how these people operate, consider the treatment of US “citizen” Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. After years of keeping Padilla in illegal detention, claiming he had been planning, first, a dirty explosion, and, second, some kind of gas attack, he as now been indicted on completely new charges. Perhaps he is guilty—he is certainly an unsavory character—but that fact remains that the administration, in violating every law up to and including the Fifth Amendment, lied to the world. Challenged with the glaring discrepancy between the administration’s original accusations and the terms of the indictment, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez refuses to comment.

When Dr. Johnson wished to denounce someone for knowingly telling a falsehood, he would say, “Sir, he lies, and he knows he lies.” Ladies and gentlemen, the leaders of this administration not only lie, they know they lie.