Funny.

Okay, not funny.

Ironic that for all the lies told about Iraq, this is the one that sends everyone on the right in to a tizzy.

- 8/14/92 Defense Secretary Dick Cheney declares President Bush Sr. wise not to invade Baghdad and "get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

1/26/98 Project for a New American Century (PNAC)—founded by Cheney, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, and other top neocons—demands President Clinton undertake the "removal of Saddam Hussein's regime."

6/23/98 "The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States."—Halliburton CEO Cheney

Late 1998 Gen. Anthony Zinni, head of US Central Command, examines Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi's military plan to overthrow Saddam with 1,000 men. He warns Congress it is "pie in the sky, a fairy tale."

Nov 1999 Chalabi-connected Iraqi defector "Curveball"—a convicted sex offender and low-level engineer who became the sole source for much of the case that Saddam had WMD, particularly mobile weapons labs—enters Munich seeking a German visa. German intel officers describe his information as highly suspect. US agents never debrief Curveball or perform background check. Nonetheless, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and CIA will pass raw intel on to senior policymakers. [Date the public knew: 11/20/05]


10/3/00 Debating Al Gore, George W. Bush says he'd commit troops only with an "exit strategy," and he'd be "very careful about using our troops as nation builders."


Early 2001 Enron CEO Ken Lay named to Bush Energy Department transition team. Jack Abramoff appointed to Interior Department transition team.

1/30/01 Saddam's removal is top item of Bush's inaugural national security meeting. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill later recalls, "It was all about finding a way to do it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'" [Date the public knew: 1/10/04]


2/14/01 Dick Cheney's energy task force begins secret meetings with oil company executives. [Date the public knew: 4/16/01]


3/5/01 Pentagon produces document titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" for Cheney's task force. Includes a map of areas for potential exploration. [Date the public knew: 7/17/03]

4/10/01 Lone CIA analyst known only as "Joe" tells top Bush brass that aluminum tubes bought by Iraq can only be for nuclear centrifuges. [Date the public knew: 8/10/03]
8/6/01

8/17/01 Memo to CIA from Energy Department experts eviscerates "Joe's" theory that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq are for nuclear centrifuges. Memo given to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who later claims tubes are clear evidence of Iraqi nuke program. [Date the public knew: 5/1/04]

Sep 2001 Curveball granted German asylum, ceases cooperating. British spy agency MI6 has told CIA that "elements of [his] behavior strike us as typical of…fabricators." [Date the public knew: 11/20/05]


9/11/01 Al Qaeda attacks. Minutes taken by a Rumsfeld aide five hours later: "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]." [Date the public knew: 9/4/02]

9/12/01 According to counterterror czar Richard Clarke, "[Bush] told us, 'I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this.'" Told evidence against Al Qaeda overwhelming, Bush asks for "any shred" Saddam was involved. [Date the public knew: 3/22/04]

11/8/01 The New York Times and Frontline report that an Iraqi general witnessed the Iraqi military training Arab fighters to hijack airplanes. Mother Jones later reports general to be bogus Chalabi plant. [Date the public knew: 3/1/06]

11/21/01 Bush collars Rumsfeld physically and asks: "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret."—Bob Woodward. [Date the public knew: 4/18/04]

Feb 2002 DIA intelligence summary notes that Libi's "confession" lacks details and suggests that he is most likely telling interrogators what he thinks will "retain their interest." Also states: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." [Date the public knew: 10/26/05]

2/12/02 With "profound sadness," Ken Lay refuses to testify before Congress.

2/26/02 Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson sent to Niger to check out claims Iraq buying uranium-rich yellowcake. [Date the public knew: 7/6/03]

March 2002 "***k Saddam. We're taking him out."—Bush to Rice and three senators. [Date the public knew: 12/8/03]

March 2002 As The New Yorker later reports: "Chalabi's defector reports were now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice President's office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals." [Date the public knew: 10/27/03]

3/5/02 Joe Wilson tells CIA there's no indication that Iraq is buying yellowcake. [Date the public knew: 7/6/03]

3/8/02 First of Downing Street memos prepared by Tony Blair's top national security aides. "There is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD…Washington believes the legal basis for an attack on Iraq already exists…Regime change has no basis in international law." [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]

3/13/02 Bush on Osama: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

3/14/02 Downing Street memo: "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed…Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions…what happens the morning after?" [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]

3/15/02 British intel reports that there's only "sporadic and patchy" evidence of Iraqi WMD. "There is no intelligence on any [biological weapons] production facilities." [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]

3/22/02 Downing Street memo: "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing…We are still left with a problem of bringing public opinion to accept the imminence of a threat from Iraq…Regime change does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]

3/24/02 Saddam "is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time."—Cheney on CNN

3/25/02 Downing Street memo: "There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with Al Qaida…In the documents so far presented it has been hard to glean whether the threat from Iraq is so significantly different from that of Iran or North Korea as to justify action." [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]

Late March 2002 Cheney tells Republican senators that the question is no longer if the US will invade Iraq but when. [Date the public knew: 5/5/02]

3/28/02 Pakistani forces capture Al Qaeda "operations chief " Abu Zubaydah and CIA ferrets him away to underground interrogation facility in Thailand. Bush told he's mentally unstable and really only Al Qaeda's travel agent. [Date the public knew: 11/2/05]

4/4/02 Blair visits Bush in Crawford to discuss Iraq. Bush tells Britain's ITV: "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go."

May 2002 Primary corroborator of Curveball's claims that Iraq has mobile weapons labs is judged a liar and Chalabi plant by DIA. A fabricator warning is posted in US intelligence databases. [Date the public knew: 3/28/04]

Summer 2002 French debunk yellowcake theory: "We told the Americans, 'Bull****. It doesn't make any sense,'" says French official. [Date the public knew: 12/11/05]

June 2002 To a deputy raising doubts about Iraq war, Rice says: "Save your breath. The president has already made up his mind." [Date the public knew: 1/7/04]

7/11/02 "Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance, the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will."—Richard Perle

8/20/02 "We may or may not attack. I have no idea yet."—Bush. "There are Al Qaeda in Iraq…There are."—Rumsfeld.

8/26/02 "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends…and against us." —Cheney

9/7/02 "From a marketing point of view you don't introduce new products in August."—White House Chief of Staff Andy Card on rollout of the war

9/7/02 Bush claims a new UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report states Iraq is six months from developing a nuclear weapon. There is no such report.

9/8/02 Page 1 Times story by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon cites anonymous administration officials saying Saddam has repeatedly tried to acquire aluminum tubes "specially designed" to enrich uranium. "The first sign of a 'smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud."

9/8/02 Tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs…we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."—Rice on CNN

9/8/02 "We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon."—Cheney on Meet the Press

9/12/02 Bush repeats aluminum-tube claim before UN General Assembly.

9/13/02 Cheney tells Rush Limbaugh: "What's happening, of course, is we're getting additional information that, in fact, Hussein is reconstituting his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs." There is no such new intel.

9/16/02 "The president hasn't made a decision to do anything with respect to Iraq."—Rumsfeld

9/16/02 White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimates Iraq war could cost $200 billion.

Mid-Sep 2002 American relatives of Iraqis sent as CIA moles return from Iraq. All 30 report Saddam has abandoned WMD programs. Intel buried in the CIA bureaucracy. President Bush never briefed. [Date the public knew: 1/3/06]

9/18/02 Bush calls Saddam's offer to let inspectors back into Iraq "his latest ploy."

9/19/02 Rumsfeld tells Congress that Saddam "has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, and mustard gas."

9/19/02 Classified UK memo notes there's "no definitive intelligence that [the aluminum tubes are] destined for a nuclear programme." [Date the public knew: 9/24/02]

9/23/02 Institute for Science and International Security releases report calling the aluminum- tube intelligence ambiguous and warning that "U.S. nuclear experts who dissent from the Administration's position are expected to remain silent. 'The President has said what he has said, end of story,' one knowledgeable expert said."

9/24/02 Britain releases dossier to public saying Iraq could launch biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes. Dossier later determined to be "sexed up."

It goes on and on.



But, hey, isn't Brian Williams a liar?



Web Link

It's all recorded. Too bad no one cares.


But, hey, isn't Brian Williams a liar? His helicopter wasn't shot at, it was the one after his, or the one before.

Whatever.


Web Link

It's not all the GOP and Cheney/Bush:

“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.”

(Madeleine Albright, U.S. representative to the United Nations, responding to a U.N. report that sanctions had killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five).

Go ahead - read it again, especially if you are a parent.

Or have/had one.

Everyone expects politicians to lie.