Black Box Recorder

US "unprepared" for Iraq occupation; more on Iraq WMDs and "lies"

US general William Nash has accused the Bush regime of failing to prepare for the reality of occupying Iraq:

"It is an endeavour which was not understood by the administration to begin with," he said.
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In one of the most outspoken critiques from a man of his standing, Nash said the US had 'failed to understand the mindset and attitudes of the Iraqi people and the depth of hostility towards the US in much of the country'.

"It is much greater and deeper than just the consequences of war,' he added. 'It comes from 12 years of sanctions, Israel and Palestinians, and a host of issues."
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"In the entire region - and Iraq is typical - there is a sense that America can do whatever it wants. So that if America decides to protect the oilfields and oil ministry, it can.

"And if America doesn't provide electricity and water or fails to protect medical supplies, it is because they don't want to or they don't care."

Speaking of not providing vital services and having priorities backwards: some Iraqis are complaining that US administrators, living in air-conditioned comfort, are out of touch with the situation of the "man on the street":

Asked about Baghdad's lack of electricity at an air-conditioned press conference, Paul Bremer, the American head of the occupation authority, looking cool in a dark suit and quiet purple tie, simply asserted that, with a few exceptions, Baghdad was now receiving 20 hours of electricity a day. "It simply isn't true," said one Iraqi, shaking his head in disbelief after listening to Mr Bremer. "Everybody in Baghdad knows it."

Well, the mainstream media reported all of the Bush administration's lies with a straight face - so why shouldn't they do the same when Bush's hatchet boy in Iraq says everything is just fine?

Even the few Iraqis who have joined the Coalition Provisional Authority under Mr Bremer - which operates out of Saddam Hussein's heavily fortified Republican Palace in the centre of the capital - describe the American officials administering Iraq as "living in an air-conditioned fantasy world".

At a meeting on Thursday between Mr Bremer and some 60 Iraqi political leaders, formerly the opposition to Saddam, Mahmoud Othman, a highly respected veteran Kurdish politician, bluntly suggested that the American army pull out of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities to camps in the countryside.

"I told Bremer that Baghdad was a paralysed city," said Mr Othman. "He and his staff don't really know what it is like, because if they go out at all, it is in air-conditioned cars. But I've walked the streets, and I know what it is like. They are ill-informed and ill-advised."

Blix now says that if Iraq has anything related to WMD at all, it will be simply "debris" from older programs.

Meanwhile, the WaPo reports - about 7 or 8 months after leftists and other "conspiracy theorists" had already said it - that Bush and his cronies were "highly selective" with the information they released about Iraq, "Qaeda", and WMD.

A still-classified national intelligence report circulating within the Bush administration at the time [last October, when Bush made a speech definitively outlining "evidence" pointing towards Iraq-Qaeda links], however, portrayed a far less clear picture about the link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by the president, according to U.S. intelligence analysts and congressional sources who have read the report.
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The handling of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda has come under increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill, with some leading Democrats charging that the administration exaggerated the case against Hussein by publicizing intelligence that supported its policy and keeping contradictory information under wraps.
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While Bush also spoke of Iraq and al Qaeda having had "high-level contacts that go back a decade," the president did not say -- as the classified intelligence report asserted -- that the contacts occurred in the early 1990s, when Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, was living in Sudan and his organization was in its infancy. At the time, the report said, bin Laden and Hussein were united primarily by their common hostility to the Saudi Arabian monarchy, according to sources. Bush also did not refer to the report's conclusion that those early contacts had not led to any known continuing high-level relationships between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, the sources said.

And so forth. The article offers many other examples of the Bush administration making clear, unambiguous, and definitive statements about what Iraq did have and what it could do.

Now, for those of you still uncertain as to whether Bush lied or not, let me lay it out in very clear, basic terms. Dictionary.com, using as its source the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, defines the noun "lie" as:

1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

Bush and his cronies presented their knowledge as absolute, without the possibility of error; their statements were always preceded by "we know...", or something similar. But, now it is clear that they didn't "know", and that they knew that they didn't "know" at the time. Therefore, they were making deliberately making false statements which they presented as being true; they also gave Americans the wrong impression about Iraq's WMD capability. This is underscored by Bush's current statements like the US will determine the "true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes." Before the war, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others "knew" the extent of Iraq's WMD program - hell, several times they laid it out down to the liter or the kilogram. Now they are saying that they didn't "know" the extent of Iraq's WMD program.

In other words, Bush lied. And not about something like whether he got a blow-job or not. It's time to get the impeachment proceedings started.