Remember: They Are Liars
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Tuesday 08 April 2008
No one is such a liar as the indignant man.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice,
along with a slew of administration underlings and a revolving-door cavalcade
of brass hats from the Pentagon, have been making claims regarding Iraq for
many years now.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, "enough
to kill several million people," according to a page on the White House
web site titled Disarm
Saddam Hussein.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 500 tons, which equals 1,000,000 pounds,
of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of nearly 30,000 munitions capable of delivering
these agents.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of several mobile biological weapons labs.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was operating an "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq had been seeking "significant quantities" of uranium
from Africa for use in this "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes "suitable
for nuclear weapons."
They lied.
They claimed America needed to invade, overthrow and occupy Iraq in order to
remove this menace from our world. "It would take just one vial, one canister,
one crate slipped into this country," went the White House line, "to
bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."
They lied.
"Simply stated," said Dick Cheney in August of 2002, "there
is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Liar.
"Right now," said George W. Bush in September of 2002, "Iraq
is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of nuclear
weapons."
Liar.
"We know for a fact," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
in January of 2003, "that there are weapons there."
Liar.
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass
destruction," said Colin Powell in February of 2003, "is determined
to make more."
Liar.
"We know where they are," said Donald Rumsfeld in March of 2003.
"They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, south, west
and north somewhat."
Liar.
"The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about," said Paul
Wolfowitz in March of 2003. "Like the people of France in the 1940s, they
view us as their hoped-for liberator."
Liar.
"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were,"
said Condoleezza Rice in June of 2003, "where they were stored."
Liar.
"I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction
inside this country," said Gen. Tommy Franks in April of 2003. "Whether
we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or
3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials
who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another
site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure."
Wrong.
"Before the war," said Gen. Michael Hagee in May of 2003, "there's
no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological
and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."
Wrong.
"Given time," said Gen. Richard Myers in May of 2003, "given
the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're
going to find weapons of mass destruction."
Wrong.
"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do," said
Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton in May of 2003, "because I think there's a lot of
information out there."
Wrong.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, is about to give testimony
before the Senate regarding the current state of affairs in that battle-savaged
country. He is a political general, one of many America has seen and heard over
the last five years, one who would leap nude from the Capitol dome before telling
the real truth about matters in Iraq ... or who would speak using words fed
to him by liars, and thus be wrong.
Remember: they lie. They all lie, from the top man down to the bottom. If their
lips are moving, a lie is unfolding. If they say water is wet, get into the
shower to make sure.
They lie.
Period.
End of file.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.
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