Lying about "Bush lied."


Using the wayback machine
Bryan Preston has a great piece on the accusations against President Bush.

The president could have destroyed the entire "Bush Lied" attack a long time ago. And he could have done it in a way that showed what a wired, technologically savvy president he is; and in a way that would have simplified his side of the debate down to three words and a number:
 
Google "Clinton Iraq 1998"
 
Google is not just a search engine; it's also something of a wayback machine. It can take us back to the last time prior to 2003 that the United States waged a campaign against Saddam Hussein.
 
If you go to Google and run a search using "Clinton Iraq 1998," you will find at the time of this writing 3,010,000 hits. Time stands still for no net surfer, so your mileage may vary slightly. But you won't need all those three million hits anyway. You can just click on the very first one, which will take you to a CNN story dated December 16, 1998 about President Clinton warning Iraq that its failure to comply with UN weapons inspections left him no choice but to attack. And attack he did, launching Operation Desert Fox, which destroyed Iraq's intelligence headquarters and a few other points of concern. President Clinton's reasons for the operation:
 
"Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," Clinton said.
 
And:
 
"Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces," Clinton said.
 
"Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors," said Clinton.
 
For the "Bush Lied" mantra to have any logical or factual force, one must believe that Desert Fox not only destroyed every single WMD Saddam had, but also cowed him sufficiently that he never built a single WMD or lab in the five years that remained of his rule. And that knowing all of this, Bush took us to war anyway. No serious person believes that.

Now before anyone flies off the handle, notice what Mr. Preston isn't doing. He is not defending Mr. Bush. Nor am I. This article focuses on one argument and one argument only, the whole claim that "Bush lied."

I've pointed out before that if Mr. Bush lied, so did Mr. Clinton in 1998. But if they were both telling the truth, the difference becomes clear. Mr. Clinton was content to make noise, but not to take any meaningful steps to back up that noise. That is the approach that invites attack from fundamentalists.

I have issues with Mr. Bush, I do not like how the war was run. But if "Bush lied" is all his critics can come up with, I've no reason to choose them over him.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - November 16, 2005 at 05:05 AM  Tag


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