XPost: sci.environment, talk.environment, alt.politics.bush   
   XPost: alt.impeach.bush, alt.politics.republican   
   From: VD@Pyro.net   
      
   January 28, 2004 | Daily Mislead Archive   
   Bush Claims to Never Say Iraq Was "Imminent Threat"   
      
      
   Facing mounting pressure over charges that the White House deliberately   
   misled the American people about Iraq's WMD, President Bush is now claiming   
   that U.N. weapons inspectors were not allowed into Iraq before the war.   
   Yesterday, the president said, Iraq "chose defiance. It was [Saddam's]   
   choice to make, and he did not let us in."1   
      
   But U.N. weapons inspections led by Hans Blix began on November 27th, 2003,   
   as noted by the State Department at the time.2 Over the course of the next   
   five months, those inspections found "little more than 'debris'" from a WMD   
   program that had long since been destroyed.3 The weapons inspectors were   
   forced to leave when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq.4 President Bush then   
   "refused to permit the U.N. inspectors to return to Iraq."5   
      
   When asked about the issue yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan   
   claimed the entire WMD issue was unimportant because the Bush Administration   
   had never said Iraq was a threat. He said, "the media have chosen to use the   
   word 'imminent'" to describe the Iraqi "threat" - not the Bush   
   Administration.6   
      
   But the record shows the Administration repeatedly said Iraq was an   
   "imminent threat." On May 7th, less than a week after the president   
   announced the end of major combat operations, White House spokesman Ari   
   Fleischer was asked, "Didn't we go to war because we said WMD were a direct   
   and imminent threat to the U.S.?" He replied, "Absolutely."7 Similarly, in   
   November 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "I would look you   
   in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself   
   this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent   
   threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six   
   months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent   
   threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a   
   month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you   
   must do something?" Most notably, Vice President Cheney said two days after   
   President Bush's 2003 State of the Union that Saddam Hussein "threatens the   
   United States of America."8   
      
   Sources:   
     1.. President Bush Welcomes President Kwasniewski to White House ,   
   01/27/2004.   
     2.. "Weapons Inspections to Begin in Iraq November 27", US State   
   Department, 11/25/2002.   
     3.. "Blix Downgrades Prewar Assessment of Iraqi Weapons", Washington Post,   
   11/22/2003.   
     4.. "Weapons Inspectors Leave Iraq", CBS News, 03/18/2003.   
     5.. "Bush bars UN weapons teams from Iraq", SMH, 04/24/2003.   
     6.. Press Briefing, 01/27/2004.   
     7.. Press Briefing, 05/07/2003.   
     8.. "Confronting Iraq Crucial To War Against Terror", Truth News,   
   01/30/2003.   
      
   --   
   "We must create a  crisis in order to ensure that there is no   
   alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.   
      
   "We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby starving   
   it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.   
      
   "Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the government,   
   paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would place   
   heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior   
   Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.   
      
   "They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in   
   order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts   
   are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of   
   everything, including the war on terror." - Paul Krugman - Economist.   
      
   Killing the current occupant of the white house at the polls in the coming   
   election is a moral imperitive.   
      
   --   
   "We must create a  crisis in order to ensure that there is no   
   alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.   
      
   "We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby starving   
   it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.   
      
   "Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the government,   
   paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would place   
   heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior   
   Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.   
      
   "They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in   
   order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts   
   are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of   
   everything, including the war on terror." - Paul Krugman - Economist.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)