....LMB: "Cut to the Chase"....

May 31, 2003

Jack Straw, Colin Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims
US Intel 'Simply Wrong' on Chemical Attack-General
Australian Intelligence Knew US Was Lying About WMD Programme
How the US & UK Manipulated UN Reports That Led Us Into War
Colin Powell on US WMD Report, "This is Bullshit"

Honestly, a few of those stories above have some shaky sourcing, but most have at least some good evidence that the U.S. claims of WMD were exaggerated at best, or that smart people in high places believed that the claims were unsubstantiated.

Of course to those of us paying attention at the time, this was obvious. I examined every public piece of evidence that allegedly supported the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and did not find any of them to be particularly compelling.

In addition, there was evidence at the time that members of the Bush White House were pressuring American intelligence to "find" evidence that damned Iraq.

Therefore none of the news links I posted above were really "news." Maybe it's "news" that the media is actually starting to look into this possiblity that Bush & crew misled the American people, and the whole world.

Of course, that doesn't matter too much to most Americans, who have readily fallen for the bait and switch. We liberated the Iraqi people, and that's good enough for them.

So as the media slowly uncovers history in bits and pieces, let me write the story that should be headline news, and would save a whole lotta ink.

Bush Invaded Iraq Because He "Damn Well Felt Like It"
Sun June 1 2003 5:30PM
By Jake Sexton

WASHINGTON (LMB)- In a series of candid interviews today, key members of the Bush administration admitted that the decision to invade Iraq had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's tyranny, weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al Qaeda. "We invaded Iraq," said Bush, "because it seemed like a good idea."

Bush confided that he had been seriously shaken by the events of 9-11. "Nothing like that could be allowed to happen on American shores again," he said, "and when Wolfie [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz] and Rummy [Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] told me that Iraq could maybe give the United States another 9-11, but with nuclear weapons... Saddam Hussein's a bad man, and that's just the sorta thing he'd do, I know that from TV. It was then that I knew that the man had to go. Lucky for us, Rummy and his pals already had a plan."

"Man, that guy is a sucker," cackled Donald Rumsfeld. "Me and the fellas had this great idea some years back to get power over there in the Middle East. We go throw out Saddam Hussein and take over Iraq. Now we've got Saudi Arabia shitting bricks, because if we've got control of Iraq's oil, we don't need Saudi Arabia's. Our attack won't just get us the oil, but it will put the fear of God into all the other countries in the region that haven't been as, uh, cooperative with the United States as they had been in the past: Iran, Syria, Jordan, Yemen. And if any of them don't act like team players, we can easily take them out too, just like Iraq."

Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle recounted the difficulty of putting their radical plan into action. "There just was no good reason to invade Iraq-- well, no reason that your average peace-loving hippy American would accept. Man, I hate the public so much!!" He snarled and bared his teeth, and then resumed his tale. "After 9-11, we had a great excuse: terrorism! Bush bought into it right away. We didn't need to explain much to him or present him with any sort of evidence or strategy. He listened to Don [Rumsfeld], listened to me, pretended to listen to [Colin] Powell. Then he gave me and Don a thumbs-up and went back to playing his GameBoy."

Paul Wolfowitz completed the story. "We pushed hard with the 'Saddam helped Al Qaeda' angle, but that never went too far. But a lot of our work was cut out for us, thanks to the media. They'd been helping demonize Saddam Hussein for well over a decade, so the public was ready to believe just about anything we said about him. We thought about going with the 'Saddam eats babies' message, but decided to stick with a simpler 'Saddam's going to kill us all with his evil death weapons' line. On top of that, we tried to throw the words 'terror' or 'terrorist' into every statement that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein. 'Saddam's terrorist regimes', 'terrorist groups and dictators like Saddam Hussein', "Saddam Hussein and his arsenal of terror,"and so on. That was pretty effective."

Effective it was. After 9-11, about 3% of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terror attack. By March of 2003, despite any hard evidence, as many as 44% of Americans were convinced that Iraq was involved in the attack.

So what about the weapons of mass destruction? How did that fit in?

Said Rumsfeld, "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? Probably. Was Saddam Hussein going to use them against the United States? Probably not. Did we care? Hell no."

"Then we listened to that damned Coin Powell. Jeez, we oughtta have him killed," grumbled Vice President Dick Cheney. "The American people were buying our story about the weapons, and he decided we should try to make it legit by going to the UN. That was a fucking disaster. Set the invasion back by 6 months or more. And made us a laughingstock. Well, a laughingstock outside of the U.S., anyway. But there is a bit of a silver lining in that we were able to grossly undermine the UN's credibility."

As weeks turn into months with no sign of the alleged weapons of mass destruction, why aren't the American people finally turning on the men in power who lied their way to war?

It seems that the Bush administration has pulled off an amazing sleight of hand trick. Once the invasion seemed inevitable, the White House shifted much of its rhetoric to the theme of "liberating the Iraqi people." They maintained that message, going so far as to shift the name of the military action from former feel-good or nature-themed names like "Operation Just Cause" or "Operation Desert Storm" to the rather transparent "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Essentially, the Bush administration has turned a failed card trick into a political victory. The Bush administration promised to guess which card the American people had pulled from the deck. And when Bush guesses the wrong card, instead of saying "no, my card was the three of clubs," the American people have said "the seven of diamonds, that's a very nice card too."

We confronted President Bush about this in our final interview.

"Okay, you caught me. We didn't have any evidence. We invaded Iraq cuz we damn well felt like it. This invasion was in the best interests of the American people--well, the rich ones who are my friends anyway. Don't you understand? America is not safe unless other countries fear us, us and our weapons. And they're not going to fear us unless we do a little invading now and then. In addition, American military intervention is key to supporting America's kill-dependent economy."

"So we invaded Iraq, big deal?" concluded the president. "A few Americans died, a few Iraqis died, who cares about them? It was a small price to pay to maintain global order. Imagine what the plantation would be like if all the slaves and fieldhands went around doing what they wanted instead of what the master wanted them to do. Chaos, anarchy. We can't have that."