Bush "mis-informs" Congress?

Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress?

Today on Meet The Press, Condolezza Rice (the President's security advisor) agreed President Bush's statement in the 2003 State of the Union address:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

...has since been proven wrong and was based on forged documents.

When Tim Russert (the show's host) asked her if President Bush should make a retraction of the statement from the State of the Union address, she answered a different question and changed the subject.

So...that State of the Union address was full of the adminstration's case against Iraq. What do we think the administration SHOULD do about "facts" the President stated before the Congress and the American people that have since been proven wrong?

Re: Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress?

Who were the documents forged and provided by. I don't understand, if they were forged couldn't they have been taken for truth at first? Wouldn't that make the administration the victims of mis-information also. I mean if you unknowingly pass a fake $20 and get caught who do you blame? Who is the victim of fraud here? Where does the trail lead? Was it orchestrated by the whole administration or a small contingent withing the admin. or was it outside manipulation? Just a couple questions to consider.

Oh one more question, were the documents truly forged or just assembled from questionable or possibly innacurate or outdated information or sources?

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress?

Good article on the forged documents

forged

Re: Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress?

Excellent article dark star, answers some of the main questions but can't answer the more subtle ones. I mean we still don't know if this was a blatant manipulation of known fraudulent info or a breakdown in our intelligence community's verification of the info before public consumption. I am led to believe that the info may have been rushed through the channels due to it's believed importance to the Bush admin. stance on Iraq and it's release may have been due to incompetent handling of unverified sensitive info and is now an embarrassment to those who fell for it and explains their lack of offering accountablilty. But I am not sure. I do believe the war was justified though, I always felt that the Hussein regime was a continuing enemy to the US and our allies in that region and I don't doubt that they were up to something all along. I know it's no justification for passing bad info, but the war is over for the most part and hopefully the world will aid in stabilizing the region and move on to other problems.

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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So...to restate my question:

What do we think the administration SHOULD do about "facts" the President stated before the Congress and the American people that have since been proven wrong?


Does it matter that what he told us was wrong?

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Depends on what the definition of "is" is... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon6.gif

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What good would it do to pursue it at this point. Waste more taxpayers money to try to have someone to blame. Why does everything need to be resolved through blame, that is such a lawyer tactic and party politic. If they were duped, they were duped. If it was an orchestrated ruse you are gonna have a hell of a time (and spend alot of our tax dollars) trying to prove it. Remember how much money the whole Clinton debacle cost us. Let's get on with business and start working on the real crisis, unemployment and economic recovery. Screw all the finger pointing and gum flapping.

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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What tsg said.

Mike-

Re: Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress

tsg68 said: What good would it do to pursue it at this point.

Hmmm. I think you are misunderstanding my question.

I'm not talking about "pursuing" anything. My question is all about what we think that the Bush administration is obligated to do. After all, the President presented evidence to the Congress and the American people that has since been proved wrong. Many people that saw the State of the Union address may not have seen the corrected information...or if they did, they may not believe the new information since our President presented the original info.

What should President BUSH do?

Re: Bush

Yeah, lets just go on, forget about it, and when it happens again with Iran or N. Korea, let's ignore that too. Honestly. When Clinton was engaged in an activity, which had nothing to do with our credibility as a Nation, just his own, we wasted and wasted tax dollars on that. I guess our priorities were all askew back then. Why would anyone care about the adventures of Slick Willie and his wandering wee-wee to begin with? This, on the other hand, involves our credibility to the rest of the planet. The former just cast doubt on Mr. Clinton's integrity, but in bedroom matters, not on military rationalization for war. This can adversely affect the validity of our future justifications for military involvement, no matter how compulsory it seems. No one died over the escapades of Wee Willie. Even Ms. Lewinsky's dress survived after a rendezvous with the dry-cleaners.
My point being, let's get our priorities straight! Here we have our credibility as a Nation as a Superpower vs. the credibility of one man's staying power. Which should we care about? Sweeping the matter under the carpet doesn't actually ADD anything to World opinion regarding our motives. I feel we would lose more allies than anything else.

Ed.

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I got an idea... ... let's apologize to Sadam and put him back in power!... Yeah! That's a good idea! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

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Saddam? Nah....its the Iraqi people that deserve an apology. If the United States is sincere about restoring the country to its people, let them take the responsibility of choosing their own leader, not not force some US-sponsored character on them.

As for Bush, those that feel strongly about him can always NOT vote for him at the next election, which hopefully will not be a repeat of the previous fiasco.

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Just out of curiosity... what do we need to apologize to the Iraqi people for?

Re: Bush \"mis-informs\" Congress?

[ QUOTE ]
Sasha said:
I got an idea... ... let's apologize to Sadam and put him back in power!... Yeah! That's a good idea! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh...Sasha, could we stay on thread?

My question is...what is Bush obligated to do having told Congress and the American people something that was later proved wrong?

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Uh... Ikendu, I was on topic. You asked and I answered. I'm sorry if you didn't like my answer. I guess I feel that your question is just alot of trying to bait the Republicans here on CPF. I think that perhaps you are just trying to stir up trouble. I could be wrong, of course. It has been known to happen a time or two.

How about this? If you would like for this to be a serious discussion, then how about if you go first? What do YOU think we should do? I'm curious...

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It's a mute issue. Assuming THAT document was forged, there is still plenty of other data supporting what we did. Some want to hinge the whole war (I wonder why) on this forged document when it's abundantly clear it was just another piece of intel.

Do we want to talk about credibility? We are just now getting it back after the embarrassments of the nineties. By the way and this is mute as well but to correct an earlier statement; Wee Willie did get people killed with his shenanigans. Remember when he was trying to deflect attention away from his biggest scandal and he bombed the aspirin factory, people were killed? What was he using for evidence? Remember in 1998 when he came on national television and told us Iraq was still producing WMD's where did he get the data? It may have been good, it may have been bad but the Dems. loved the data then and hate it now, why is that? Of course the answer is obvious, politics.

To answer the original question, what should the administration do? Nothing, move on and thank God there was so much overwhelming evidence that this bad information was nothing more than that, bad information that changed nothing. It wasn't the first mistake nor will it be the last. Now if they want to investigate the source of the forgery, go for it.

This will get fun over the next year and a half as the dems. look for a something to sink their teeth into. We will have this type thread many, many times and hopefully we can keep it civil. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

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.....well, the apology will be for invading their country, killing civilians(yes, I know its considered collateral damage by the bean counters, but tell that to the Iraqis), and not protecting their historical heritage from being looted(by various people, including western journalists), opting instead to protect only the oil. Of course, there has not been an iota of solid evidence of WMDs, despite earlier claims by the Bush and Blair administrations. If they had WMDs you'd think they'll use them at some point. If I were Iraqi I'd be quite upset.

This is of course my own personal opinion, and my last word on this subject. Feel free to disagree and rebutt. Quite frankly, I hope I'm wrong and evidence does turn up to show that the loss of life on both sides was not in vain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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[ QUOTE ]
If I were Iraqi I'd be quite upset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes... I'm sure they preferred the oppression and starvation and executions and brutality and torture. Oh and let's not forget about having their children murdered and piled into mass graves. I get so sick of how easy all of that is just shoved aside and glossed over just so people can bash Bush. Yeah... the Iraqis were so better off before. Like I said... let's just apologize to everyone and put Sadam back in power. That will fix it, won't it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

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lhz,
1. The civilians were being killed in mass before we arrived and we stopped it. The number of civilians killed was tragic but far, far, far less than all the anti-liberation crowd projected.
2. It's a shame about their antiquities but oil before vases and people before paintings. Did you read or see the vast majority or the items have been recovered?
3. The more we learn the more WMD's become just another reason Iraq needed liberation. And yes we need to locate the WMD's. Like I said before, Clinton told us they were there in 1998 and they haven't shown they were destroyed so even a Bush hater should assume they are still there.