The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq

The Five Biggest Lies was not the first book I've read on George W. Bush and or his misadventure and it probably won't be the last. Obviously, from the title, one can deduct that this is not a book that praises the forty-third president. The book is well written and planned and is generally about what the title describes - the five major fallacies that were given as the rationale for the unprovoked aggression of Iraq. It is basically set forth in an outline style, starting with an introduction, then a chapter on the reasoning and methodology behind the deception. The deceptions themselves follow, with a chapter allocated to each lie, followed by the conclusion. The chapters outlining the five lies are titled by the lies: 1. Al Qaeda's ties to Iraq. 2. Iraq's Chemical and Biological Weapons 3. Iraq's Nuclear Weapons 4. The War Will Be a `Cakewalk' 5. Iraq as a Democratic Model 6. Conclusion Al Qaeda's ties to Iraq The authors methodically expose this deceit pointing to the fact that all of the prewar suppositions regarding an alleged tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had previously been discredited. Yet, as in the pattern of other falsehoods, these lies mysteriously found their way back into the conversations and speeches of administration officials. Iraq's Chemical and Biological Weapons Another stretch by the administration that had been debunked previously, even as the administration members continued to talk about Chemical and Biological WMD. They shamelessly continued to use this discounted intelligence as a pretext for invasion. Even though the United States and the UN had Hussein in a box, in control of only a third of his country and was unable to reconstitute chemical and biological programs; the administration pointed to this phantom program as a grave world threat. Iraq's Nuclear Weapons This may have been the largest and most damaging of the fabrications. Everything that the administration put forward to justify their mushroom cloud scenario had already been discredited numerous times and in many ways, yet the people in Rumsfeld's personal intelligence gatherers, whose only purpose was to dig up intelligence that would support the administration position, wouldn't let it die. This despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was no evidence of any kind of WMD in Iraq and weapon inspectors had come up empty. Vice President Cheney in no uncertain terms said they were "Flat wrong." Well, the head of IAEA ended up with a Nobel Peace Prize and we ended up with a quagmire. The War Will be a `Cakewalk' Here again the administration's leading Hawk, VP Cheney was head cheerleader for invasion by going on TV and saying the war would be a "cakewalk." Others treated the invasion in a cavalier manner as well. The administration planned on reducing troop levels to 30,000 troops within three months. The authors point out that this may be the only inadvertent lie, with administration officials truly be

Even Republicans are now worried and even the famous "Mr. Freedom Fries" Congressman is jumping on board to withdraw troops from Iraq as it's now clear that like LBJ made a mess with Vietnam, Bush made a mess with Iraq by he and his cronies brainwashing the public with lies. This book isn't a bad start for opening up the dirty rotten truth about the Iraq war. The only people who hate this book appear to be the neocons !

It merely requires time and a little patience to see how a book like this one is prescient. What the authors have identified as Bush's lies justifying the USA invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has now acknowledged as "mistakes": 1. Al Qaeda had terrorist links to Iraq 2. Iraq had chemical and biological weapons 3. Iraq had nuclear weapons 4. The war and the occupation would be easy 5. Iraq is primed to become a model of democracy in the Middle East Of course, the administration still holds out official hope for the fifth lie, but it is also the kind of hope the USA could have for 20 years even as it continually battles an ever-renewing insurgency of Iraqi patriots who hate the USA. Still, it is evident to the objective observer and from what we now know from the Iraqi people themselves: whatever the Iraqi people want for their government, it is not what the USA offers. The Bush administration floated a sixth lie when the mendacious nature of the first five became evident. It is now claimed that the USA invaded Iraq for purely humanitarian reasons. Yet Human Rights Watch (HRW) accurately pointed out that though Saddam was no angel, the widespread nature of his abuses ended by the early 1990s, most of them occurring during the 80s when the USA considered him an ally. In fact, HRW argued that Saddam's abuses had declined so much that a persuasive case could not be made for militarily intervening in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. Add to that the fact that approximately 100,000 Iraqi noncombatants have died since the USA invasion, and malnutrition has increased in Iraq since the invasion (at levels in excess of those while Saddam was in power), then it becomes clear that the USA invasion and occupation has been a humanitarian disaster and the USA has lied about this as well. If the authors decide to print another addition of this work, I urge them to include an analysis of this sixth lie as well. This needs to be settled: the USA has exhausted its excuses for it monstrous acts of barbarity in Iraq.

Every American should read two thin books about Iraq: "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq" by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, and "Warrior King: the Case for Impeaching George W. Bush" by John Bonifaz with forward by Congressman John Conyers.The first book exposes the lies that President Bush and members of his Administration knowingly told during the build-up to the war on Iraq, including the lies that are keeping US troops in Iraq today.The second book addresses Bush's unconstitutional act of taking the US military to war without a declaration of war by Congress. A number of US soldiers and US Congress Members sued the President in a failed attempt to prevent this war, and this book lays out the case.

I am a teacher. I am committed to honesty and free speech and an even-handed discussion of controversy. I am committed to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In short, I am committed to education. Unfortunately, in times of national crisis, teaching about current issues can be both difficult and uncomfortable. For teachers and students, for anyone engaged in an ongoing discussion of current American policies in Iraq, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry is an essential source. Despite the passage of more than two years, American educators teach under the growing shadow of 9/11, and in that shadow truth can be uncomfortable to tell. Repeatedly, this Administration, by having used transparently false justifications for war, has put all social studies teachers in a delicate situation. Over and over the truth of the matter stares us in the face daring us to tell it like it is.But, no matter how an individual teacher handles questions about Bush's reasons for war it is likely he or she will be challenged. So it is essential that we know what we are talking about. Certainly we have an obligation to read from a variety of sources, to investigate the facts, and to state them as clearly as we can. That is where this book can help. The authors, for example, write insightfully that, "one of the hallmarks of the long-running Iraq disinformation campaign led by the White House is to repeat things that aren't true until a great many people believe they are." And then in chapter after chapter they demonstrate how this technique was used over and over and over.As any good teacher knows, in the classroom, respect for evidence remains paramount, but the evidence, as made perfectly clear in this book, is overwhelmingly against this administration's pre-war justifications. Not sure that Hussein was deliberately linked, by Bush and company, to 9/11? You will be. Not sure that Bush wasn't just misled by "faulty intelligence?" You will be. Might you still be tempted to think that the Bush administration sincerely considered Iraq as the right place to establish a "democratic model" in the Middle East? Finish this book and you will abandon that bit of folklore too. On page after page the evidence is overwhelming. There were no Iraqi nukes, there was no fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ready to spray the enemy with powerful chemicals, there was no continuing relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and, most importantly, there was no immediate danger from Weapons of Mass Destruction. In fact, usable Iraqi WMDs, by the time war began, simply did not exist.Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator with a record of abuse that stretches back to his first day in office. Iraq, under Hussein, unquestionably had nuclear ambitions. Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons both before and after the first Gulf War and he repeatedly lied about this to anyone who would li