Issue Position: US Out of Iraq, UN In

Issue Position

What many of us feared before the Iraq War is now clear. We were repeatedly lied to in a cynical propaganda campaign to justify an illegal and immoral war. Now, former CIA officials have revealed that the Bush administration was distorting the evidence to fuel their rush to war.

Now, we have learned that Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was a U.S. spy and had revealed that our WMD "evidence" was wrong. Now, we have learned that 30 courageous Americans went to Iraq before the war to spy and also undercut the flimsy case for war. Their reports -- including those of a Cleveland doctor -- were dismissed, while the word of a mentally unbalanced alcoholic, whom the German intelligence community warned us about, was accepted.

There was not -- despite the two contrived bi-partisan panels set up to investigate pre-war intelligence -- an intelligence failure; it was a failure in honesty. We now know that there was a determination by the Bush Administration to wage war against Iraq even before 9‑11 and that the attacks merely served as a pretext for war in Iraq.

I now use the word "lie" to describe administration statements before the war, because the top five administration officials "lied" at least 237 times in the year before the war. The list of lies was compiled by Henry Waxman's staff (D-CA). By lie is meant the withholding of qualifying statements about evidence that would weaken the case for war. For example, the day before the war, the President insisted, "there is no doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He guaranteed us that we would find the dreaded weapons, when he knew that no guarantee should have been made. But he and his administration decided to do and say anything to make the sale. The President and all his subordinates knew that there were doubts. There were many doubts, including direct information from Saddam's inner circle, as well as previous information from sons-in-law and Iraqi Americans who courageously traveled to Iraq before the war to spy for us.

Now, of course, the web of lies is coming undone. Two top-level CIA officials, Paul R. Pillar and Tyler Drumheller, have now told us directly that the administration discussed only pro-war intelligence, to justify its previous decision to attack Iraq. This, of course, coincides with the Downing Street memo, written by a top aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that the Bush administration was fixing the "intelligence and facts" around its long-held decision to go to war. We have learned that the German foreign intelligence service already warned us of the questionable nature of our leading source, the alcoholic named "Curveball."

In other words, Dick Cheney and the neo-cons picked through the jellybeans of evidence to find the cherry ones.

The copious doubts of the intelligence community were shunted aside, while rogue operations like the Office of Special Plans were set up to circumvent the intelligence community's caveats and contrary findings and to provide a convenient fast track to "stove-pipe" fabricated intelligence directly to top administration officials. From there, officials like Dick Cheney or his staff then leaked the contrived intel to the docile press. Then the deception came full circle, as administration officials appeared on national talk shows and quoted the fabricated information they had planted among the press in dark tones of despair. Iraq was a "grave and gathering danger," and we couldn't wait.

Of course, the administration couldn't afford to wait, because their case for war was falling apart. For example, we couldn't wait because the UN inspectors who were using our intelligence were finding out -- in the words of Hans Blix -- that it was "garbage, garbage, garbage."

Of course, what would a prudent leader do when he learned that our "intelligence" for WMDs was not panning out? Would they still race to war knowing that young men and women might be dying for a lie? What would a prudent leader do when he learned that documents purportedly showing uranium purchases in Africa were clumsy forgeries?

If a witness in a murder trial removed all the qualifiers in identifying someone as the murderer and that person was unjustly executed, what should be done to that individual? Yes, it's that serious. By claiming absolute certainty, when the administration knew the evidence was not guaranteed, the administration silenced critics. After all, no one would ever say they were certain, if they were not, would they?

And then came the cover-up and shifting of blame. The administration and every talking head said: "Everyone in the world said he had WMDs, the French and Germans said he had the weapons. By God, even Bill Clinton said he had WMDs. How can you blame us?"

It is very simple. The Bush administration gave its own word, not that of Bill Clinton or the French or Germans, that the evidence was ironclad. But this administration refuses to take responsibility for its actions. Other people are responsible for the falsehoods that led us to war. They refuse to acknowledge that the admininstration's threshhold of proof was higher because lives were at stake.

Interestingly, the French and Germans never actually said that Saddam had weapons, as administration officials claim. They simply deferred to us because we swore on a stack of bibles that Saddam possessed WMDs. Heck, the administration claimed even to know the amounts and the locations.

Frankly, the audacity of the lie silenced critics. Even my own campaign advisors in 2004 constantly advised me not to declare that there were no WMDs, despite the lack of evidence, because, clearly, the Bush administration could not make guarantees without real evidence. If we directly challenged the administration, the advisors warned, we would be embarrassed. Despite the strong warnings, I was undeterred. I had not seen any real evidence and did not back off. If Iraq did have WMDs, they were negligible, and Iraq had never indicated either a desire or an ability to use them against the U.S. The blindingly illogical statements of the pro-war crowd that "Saddam has used WMDs against his own people and will not hesitate to use them against us or his neighbors" was, of course, undercut by the lack of enthusiasm for the war from his "threatened" neighbors.

The French and Germans didn't wish to be embarrassed, so they remained silent. But they did warn us not to launch the war. By the way, have you ever heard the Republicans quote the veracity of Bill Clinton for anything else? It seems they only use "evidence" when it aligns with their previously held faith-based beliefs. Do you think the neo-cons were scouring Bill Clinton's speeches looking for claims of Iraq WMDs so they could launch the war?

Incidentally, we are the world's intelligence super power as well as the sole military super power. Many nations simply did not have an opinion. Others, like the Russians, said we were probably wrong.

But there is one massive deception used by the administration that remains unaddressed. If the intelligence was "dead wrong," as Bush apologists insist while protecting the President, why did no heads roll in the intelligence community? How could the person most responsible for the massive intelligence errors, CIA Director George Tenant, earn a Congressional Medal of Freedom? The answer is simple and damning. George Tenant received the medal for placing his loyalty to the President above his loyalty to the Constitution. He was rewarded for being a loyal member of the Bush team. His job was to twist, ignore, and cherry-pick intelligence, not to confront the President when the evidence was clearly lacking. Keep in mind that when Tenant made his "slam dunk" comment to the President before the war, he was not referring to the quality of the WMD intelligence. Instead, he was specifically answering the President's question as to whether his public statements would convince the people to back the war. That distinction is critical. Tennant was not saying the evidence was convincing or even accurate, just that the public could be "sold" the war by consistently repeating the same statements -- especially if the caveats were removed.

As the "evidence" for war was being shredded, the administration raced more frantically to war. Things were falling apart. The propaganda campaign was meeting reality. War was never their last choice. It was always their first -- and only -- choice. Even if Saddam and his sons left the country, along with his top generals, we were going in -- period. On another day, I will discuss Saddam's backchannel efforts to leave Iraq and how we closed the trap.

Frankly, the imprisonment of Saddam Hussein is not worth the life of one American soldier. Torture and Iraqi deaths are going forward at a far greater pace than before our invasion. Incredibly, the Iraqi court is now trying Saddam for murders that were committed while he was our special friend. We knew what he was in the late 1970s, let alone in the 1980s, but he was a useful killing tool for us.

And now we are now trying him for murders committed before Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand and we wined and dined him with weapons, West Nile virus, chemicals for weapons, real-time coordinates, and helicopters to deliver the poison gas. As one wag said: "Of course, Saddam had WMDs at one time. We have the receipts."

So, even before the current Iraq war, it was clear that the administration's propaganda case was falling apart. It took the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) less than a day to show that our "evidence" indicating the purchase of yellow cake in Niger was a fraud. Apparently, the administration, through Scooter Libby and others, "outed" the CIA undercover wife of a critic, Joseph Wilson, to punish him for exposing the Niger fraud. But to this administration, copious contrary "evidence" was something to be overcome -- not honestly studied. Critics were to be destroyed by whatever means necessary.

Thus, few stood up to the administration in our March to Folly. I did, along with nearly two thirds of the House Democrats; we spoke out that we had not seen compelling evidence. These officials had read the rushed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and said it was worthless because it just contained "estimates" and had specious "hard" evidence. In fact, the NIE was an afterthought after the decision for war had been made and someone reminded the White House that an NIE was a necessary legal step before the war. Of course, George Tenant helped produce the necessary justification.

Congress was asked to launch a preventive war based on shadowy "estimates" surrounded by caveats. We were being asked to attack a country that had not attacked us and stated no desire to do so, based on ... what? Guesses! If it were not all so tragic, if so many beautiful lives had not been thrown away, we could all laugh at the existential absurdity of it.

And the Republican Congress has refused to address the issue of the misuse of intelligence before the war. This is a clear violation of their promise to do so.

Iraq is a disaster that need not have happened. And a war on Iran is a catastrophe that must not be allowed to happen.

America must return to its role as the most admired -- not hated -- nation. The doctrine of "pre-emption" must be retired, as well as the current aggressive, unilateralist foreign policy that makes our homeland less secure, not more. Our security will be enhanced by working with other nations and the UN, instead of acting like an Empire, arrogantly undermining international agreements such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Small Arms Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the Kyoto Climate Treaty.

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