WMD Lies - Jeb Bush Says His Brother Was Misled Into War by Faulty Intelligence. That's Not What Happened.

It was a despicable lie. It's hard to swallow that our president and vice president can lie and get away with it.  Mike Ghouse

He and other Republican presidential contenders have a new and bogus spin on how the Iraq War began. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/jeb-bush-marco-rubio-iraq-war-intelligence 

—By David Corn

| Tue May 19, 2015 10:09 AM EDT

Pablo Martinez/AP

Last week, Jeb Bush stepped in it. It took the all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate several attempts to answer the most obvious question: Knowing what we know now, would you have launched the Iraq War? Yes, I would have, he initially declared, noting he would not dump on his brother for initiating the unpopular war. "So would almost everyone that was confronted with the intelligence they got," Bush said. In a subsequent and quickly offered back-pedaling remark—on his way to saying he would have made "different decisions"—Bush emphasized that a main problem with the Bush-Cheney invasion was "mistakes as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead-up to the war." And as his Republican rivals jumped on Bush, they, too, blamed bad intelligence for causing the war. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), insisting that he would not have favored the war (if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction), commented, "President Bush has said that he regrets that the intelligence was faulty." And former CEO Carly Fiorina noted, "The intelligence was clearly wrong. And so had we known that the intelligence was wrong, no, I would not have gone in."

But here's the truth Jeb Bush and the others are hiding or eliding: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, & Co. were not misled by lousy intelligence; they used lousy intelligence to mislead the public.

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Throughout the run-up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and their lieutenants repeatedly stated assertions to justify the war that were not supported by the intel. They also hyped or mischaracterized existing intelligence to bolster their case for war. The book I wrote with Michael Isikoff,Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, chronicles the elaborate Bush-Cheney campaign to misuse and misrepresent the intelligence. Certainly, there was some information within the intelligence community (which turned out to be wrong) indicating that Saddam Hussein was trying to revive programs to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. As the Bush White House was selling the possibility of war, the intelligence agencies did quickly produce a National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 that said Iraq had "continued its weapons of mass destruction program." But there was other intelligence and analysis—some of it mentioned in that intelligence estimate—casting plenty of doubt on this. In fact, on many of the key elements of the Bush administration's case for war, the intelligence was, at best, iffy. Yet in this post-9/11 period, Bush and Cheney frequently declared there was no uncertainty: Saddam was pursuing WMD to threaten the United States, and, worse, he was in league with Al Qaeda.

Here are a few examples of how Bush and Cheney cooked the books:

• In an August 2002 speech that kicked off the administration's campaign for war against Iraq, Cheney asserted, "Simply stated, there's no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." But earlier in the year, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, had told Congress that Iraq possessed only "residual" amounts of WMD. There was no confirmed intelligence at this point establishing that Saddam had revived a major WMD operation. As Cheney made this claim, Anthony Zinni, a former commander in chief of US Central Command, was on the stage. He was stunned to hear Cheney say that Iraq was actively pursuing WMD. As he laterrecalled, "It was a shock. It was a total shock. I couldn't believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program." In other words, bad intelligence did not cause Cheney to make this categorical, bold, and frightening statement. He just did it.
• In September 2002, Cheney insisted there was "very clear evidence" Saddam was developing nuclear weapons: Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes that were to be used to enrich uranium for bombs. But Cheney and the Bush White House did not tell the public that there was a heated dispute within the intelligence community about this supposed evidence. The top scientific experts in the government had concluded these tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. But one CIA analyst—who was not a scientific expert—contended the tubes were smoking-gun proof that Saddam was working to produce nuclear weapons. The Bush-Cheney White House embraced this faulty piece of evidence and ignored the more-informed analysis. Bush and Cheney were cherry-picking—choosing bad intelligence over good—and not paying attention to better information that cut the other way.
• Cheney repeatedly referred publicly to a report that maintained that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta had met secretly in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer—even though the CIA and FBI had dismissed this allegation. This is a damning example of Cheney citing discredited intelligence to score points. Intelligence experts had said there was nothing to this tale, but Cheney kept on mentioning the alleged Atta-Iraq connection to suggest Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission later reconfirmed that this report of a Prague meeting was bunk.
• The Atta allegation was part of a wider effort mounted by the Bush-Cheney administration to link Saddam to 9/11. In November 2002, Bush said Saddam "is a threat because he's dealing with Al Qaeda." Weeks earlier, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had claimed he had "bullet-proof" evidence that Saddam was tied to Osama bin Laden. In March 2003, Cheney asserted that Saddam had a "long-standing relationship" with Al Qaeda. The intelligence did not show this. As the 9/11 Commission later concluded, there had been no intelligence confirming significant contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Once again, Bush and Cheney were not being fooled by flawed intelligence; they were were pushing disinformation.
• At a press conference at the end of 2002, Bush declared, "We don't know whether or not [Saddam] has a nuclear weapon." He clearly was suggesting that Saddam might already possess these dangerous weapons. Yet no intelligence at the time indicated that the Iraqi dictator had by then developed such weapons. The administration also insisted Saddam had been shopping for uranium in Africa, even though the intelligence on this point was dubious.

Bush and Cheney did not invade Iraq because they had been hoodwinked by bad intelligence. They claimed the intelligence was solid—when it wasn't. And they made stuff up. Days before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bush told the American public, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Yet plenty of doubt existed. Intelligence analysts had registered uncertainty regarding all of the significant aspects of Bush's case for war. Moreover, Bush and Cheney had for months tossed out a series of claims that were not supported by any confirmed intelligence.

The Iraq war at its heart was not an intelligence failure. Bush, Cheney, and their comrades were hell-bent on invading Iraq—not because of inaccurate intelligence, but because of their own assumptions and desires. The war did not happen because of bad intel. Consequently, asking whether the invasion should have happenedknowing what is now known is an irrelevant exercise. For the Bush-Cheney gang, it truly did not  matter what the intelligence said. They were not victims. They were the perps.

DAVID CORN

Washington Bureau Chief

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief. For more of his stories, click here. He's also on Twitter and Facebook. RSS | TWITTER

Why Jeb Bush Had to Ditch Dubya

A very good piece about Jeb Bush.
"Jeb Bush is just too decent a guy to get elected."

Yes, he has got to speak up, that he his not like his brother in any shape other than having shared genes.

Mike Ghouse
An independent American
http://CenterforAmericanPolitics.blogspot.com
# # # 

Why Jeb Bush Had to Ditch Dubya
Courtesy of Daily Beast

George W. Bush was able to successfully show us where he split with his dad. The future of Jeb’s candidacy depends on his ability to pull off a similar trick.

A while back, my friend and boss, Tucker Carlson, refused to condemn his brother for some inappropriate comments that were accidentally made public. “You know what, if my brother committed a mass murder, I would not criticize him in public,” Carlson later explained. “He’s my brother. Period. Under no circumstances will I criticize my family in public—ever. That’s the rule, and I’m not breaking it.”

As an only child, I can’t fully identify with this fraternal loyalty. But I respect the hell out of it. It’s a dangerous world, and if your brother doesn’t have your back, who will? But there are consequences to adhering to this sort of code. And right now, Jeb Bush is finding out that his reluctance to publicly criticize and break with his brother could potentially doom his presidential bid.

On Thursday he finally pulled the trigger and stated the obvious: No, he now says, he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq given what we know now. It was an important moment in his campaign. It was also flat-footed—his fourth answer to the question in a week—and probably didn’t go far enough. But it had to be said.

In the last 48 hours or so, we’ve seen Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and John Kasich all say that—knowing what we know now—the war was a mistake. And, of course, Rand Paul has been pushing this line all along (without need of the “knowing what we know now” caveat). Jeb lagged far behind the rest of the field on what should have been an easy question.

But of course—because the man who ordered the invasion was his brother—Jeb finds himself in a unique situation. And so, he spent several news cycles failing to adequately answer a serous question about what might be the most important foreign policy decision of the early 21st century.

Jeb’s “I’m my own man” act was, of course, never going to fly. Not without proof. And it wouldn’t have flown for Dubya, either, even though his father—the last Republican president (you always have to distance yourself from the last guy)—wasn’t as much of an albatross in 2000 as W. is today. In fact, a big part of the reason Dubya succeeded is that he broke with his dad, who still had a toxic reputation on the right, what with the tax hike and the disdain for “voodoo economics” and the losing to Bill Clinton.

Poppy made his bones in the GOP as a pro-choice moderate, an ally of Nixon and Ford; George W. ran as the personification of the religious right.

In all theatre, including politics, the first rule isshow, don’t tell. And George W. Bush didn’t just tell us he was different; he showed us he was different. He spoke differently. He wasn’t a WASP from the northeast; he was a born-again evangelical from Texas. “There is a higher father that I appeal to,” he once told Bob Woodward. Poppy made his bones in the GOP as a pro-choice moderate, an ally of Nixon and Ford; George W. ran as the personification of the religious right.

And guess what? It worked. George W. Bush managed to get elected and, unlike his dad, re-elected. In one fell swoop, Dubya avenged his father’s defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton—by simultaneously disowning his father. Jeb’s reluctance to make a similar break with his brother’s legacy cost him dearly this week, and despite his comments on Thursday, it will dog him for months.

Granted, what Dubya pulled off was a difficult trick. Despite sending the aforementioned signals to everyone that he would be more like Reagan than his own old man, he never completely threw Poppy under the bus. In fact, it was pretty clear that he loved his dad, even as he surrounded himself with Poppy’s old enemies like Don Rumsfeld. And then, just as he would do what his dad couldn’t do electorally, he would also finish the job in Baghdad.

Not to play Maureen Dowd pop psychologist here, but how much of the last few decades can be explained by the psychological need to avenge George H.W. Bush’s presidency—not by means of revisionist history, but by means of reliving it …getting it right this time?

The irony, of course, is that 41 did a good job of winding down the Cold War and effectively neutering Saddam. As you’ll recall, after H.W. Bush managed to assemble an impressive coalition, and refused to get bogged down in some quagmire. But no good deed goes unpunished. He wins a war, and some lecherous hillbilly from Arkansas takes his job? And to add insult to injury, Saddam tried to have Poppy assassinated.

So here you have this interesting psychology whereby George W. Bush is willing to publicly distance himself from dear old dad, do things dad wouldn’t approve of, in order to avenge him. This would be fascinating enough, were it not for John Ellis Bush.

Another weird twist to this story is that Jeb, always the favorite son, is probably more like 41 than 43 in temperament and outlook. And maybe that means that, had Jeb been elected president in 2000, instead of his brother, he wouldn’t have gotten us involved in the Iraq War, while he simultaneously lacks the killer instinct to tell us that. Maybe—just as 41 had the governing skills, but lacked the political instincts that might have made him a two-term president—Jeb Bush is just too decent a guy to get elected.

But here’s the bottom line: Jeb has to really distance himself from his brother, albeit in some respectable manner, if he wants to be president. He needs us to show us how he’s different, what he’d do differently, and where he and his brother diverge on issues both foreign and domestic. Where does he stand on the bailouts, the massive growth in government spending, the Medicare expansion, and all the other facets of the Bush presidency that still anger conservatives? He has to make a break with all that if he wants to make it to the nomination and, ultimately, the White House.

This insanely difficult choice—whether to stay with his brother or leave him behind—will largely define Jeb’s candidacy. The Bushes have always prized loyalty, but for Jeb, absolute loyalty to his brother—and winning the presidency—might be mutually exclusive. Some presidents would run over their own mother if that’s what it takes to win an election. What is Jeb willing to say about his brother’s policies—if push comes to shove?