Attacking Iraq was on the top of the Bush agenda from the moment he took

office.  The top-secret energy policy meetings arranged by Vice President Cheney

in early 2001 solidified the oil industry's goal of securing the oil and natural gas

reserves in the Middle East.  Vice president Cheney refused to release any information,

including who attended these meetings. Vice President Cheney fought releasing this

information and took this case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court who elected George Bush, of course, sided with

Vice President Cheney.

From that point forward, the Bush administration perpetrated one lie after the next

to support its agenda of securing the oil and natural gas reserves in the Middle East.

The Bush administration needed a "New Pearl Harbor" which they planned and

orchestrated to take place on 9/11.

_____________________________________________________________________

Was Bob Woodward Slam-Dunked?Was Bob Woodward Slam-Dunke

By Robert Parry
July 7, 2006

One of the most memorable behind-the-scenes accounts of pre-Iraq War decision-making was Bob

Woodward’s story of an Oval Office meeting on Dec. 21, 2002, when George W. Bush and his top

advisers reviewed the CIA’s case against Saddam Hussein for supposedly hiding weapons of mass

destruction.

Using flip charts, deputy CIA director John McLaughlin presented the evidence while President

Bush watched impatiently. When McLaughlin finished, Bush reportedly remarked, “Nice try”

and added “I’ve been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we’ve got?”

According to Woodward’s account, CIA director George Tenet then rose from a couch, threw his

arms into the air and exclaimed, “It’s a slam-dunk case!”

_____________________________________________________________________________

The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed

By CRAIG UNGER

READ V.F.'s PLAMEGATE COVERAGE

The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake

uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false.

Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful "black propaganda" campaign

with links to the White House

t's a crisp, clear winter morning in Rome. In the neighborhood between the Vatican and the

Olympic Stadium, a phalanx of motor scooters is parked outside a graffiti-scarred 10-story apartment

building. No. 10 Via Antonio Baiamonte is home to scores of middle-class families, and to the embassy

for the Republic of Niger, the impoverished West African nation that was once a French colony.

Though it may be unprepossessing, the Niger Embassy is the site of one of the great mysteries of our

times. On January 2, 2001, an embassy official returned there after New Year's Day and discovered

that the offices had been robbed. Little of value was missing—a wristwatch, perfume, worthless

documents, embassy stationery, and some official stamps bearing the seal of the Republic of Niger.

Nevertheless, the consequences of the robbery were so great that the Watergate break-in pales by

comparison.

________________________________________________________________________________

THE LIE OF THE CENTURY

The Downing Street Memo is only the beginning of the proof we were all lied to.

"All war is based on deception." -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

There is nothing new in a government lying to their people to start a war. Indeed because most

people prefer living in peace to bloody and horrific death in war, any government that desires to

initiate a war usually lies to their people to create the illusion that support for the war is the only

possible choice they can make.

_________________________________________________________________________

 State Department Memo: '16 Words' Were False
    By Jason Leopold
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Monday 17 April 2006

    Eleven days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he said

that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa - an

explosive claim that helped pave the way to war - the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence

the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly declassified State Department

memo.

    The revelation of the warning from the closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of

hard evidence and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and ignored intelligence

information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Now Colin Powell Tells Us

By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
Posted on April 12, 2006, Printed on April 15, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34861/

The president played the scoundrel -- even the best of his minions went along with the lies -- and when a

former ambassador dared to tell the truth, the White House initiated what Special Prosecutor Patrick J.

Fitzgerald calls "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." That is the important

story line.

If not for the whistle-blower, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, President Bush's falsehoods about

the Iraq nuclear threat likely would never have been exposed.

On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top

experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed

the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us.

___________________________________________________________________________

Italy's Intelligence Chief Met with Deputy National Security Adviser

Stephen Hadley Just a Month before the Niger Forgeries First Surfaced.

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 10.25.05

With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation,

questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the

special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports

claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries,

created on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most

tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents -- and the

role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

_____________________________________________________________________

Did Bush Lie to Fitzgerald?

By Robert Parry
April 7, 2006

Lewis Libby’s testimony identifying George W. Bush as the top official who

authorized the leaking of intelligence about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons program

raises two key questions: What did the President tell the special prosecutor about this

issue in 2004 and what is Bush’s legal status in the federal criminal probe?

Bush’s legal danger came into clearer focus with the release of a court document

citing testimony from Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff who

claimed that Bush approved the selective release of intelligence in July 2003 to counter

growing complaints that Bush had hyped evidence on Iraq’s pursuit of enriched uranium.

________________________________________________________________

Bush Authorized Leak of Iraq Intelligence Estimate

04/06/2006 @ 10:38 am

Filed by RAW STORY

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified

to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on

Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according

to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case, THE NEW YORK SUN reports Thursday.

_____________________________________________________________________

"White House Memo" Drives a Stake into the Heart of

  White House Lies
By Bob Fertik
Created 2006-03-28 01:19

Something remarkable happened Monday: the Corporate Media finally
got sick of Bush's endless lies about Iraq, and started to tell the
truth.

The immediate cause was a front-page New York Times story about
the "White House Memo," a 5-page report on the White House meeting
between George Bush and Tony Blair on January 31, 2003 - seven weeks
before the invasion of Iraq.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says

March 27, 2006

By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq,

as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution

condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt:

Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During

a private two-hour

meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister

Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second

resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional

weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written

by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

_______________________________________________________________

Bush's Uranium Lies: The Case For A Special 

Prosecutor That Could Lead To Impeachment  

by Francis T. Mandanici    
Wednesday, 29 June 2005 

Some have observed that the Bush Administration's claims that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction were not just good faith mistakes
but actual lies.  Some have even recently compared President Bush's
false claims about Iraq to the Watergate scandal that led to
President Nixon's resignation.  See Truth And Deceit by Bob Herbert
and Don't Follow the Money by Frank Rich in The New York Times, June
2, 12, 2005.  Some, such as the organizations AfterDowningStreet and
DemocracyRising.US, have even called for the initiation of
impeachment proceedings based in part on the Downing Street Memo
that revealed that according to a British intelligence official the
Bush Administration prior to the war against Iraq fixed the
intelligence and facts to justify the war.[1] 

______________________________________________________

The War to Deceive America Into War -- And the War to 

Cover Up the Deception
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Posted June 7, 2005
Before America went to war with Afghanistan, another war was underway -- 

against its own people: the war to deceive America into attacking Iraq. This is 

no longer a theory or conjecture; it is a documented fact.

Those in the Mainstream Media, including the New York Times and 

Washington Post, who choose to ignore this reality, or couch it in qualifying 

terms (such as "unproven assertions") are no longer trying to debunk a 

conspiracy, because the deliberate deception that forced America into war 

with Iraq is not a conspiracy theory.

In fact, the evidence is so abundant and damning, it is those who deny 

the reality that the Bush Administration intentionally deceived America into 

a ruinous war based on calculated lies who are part of an untenable

conspiracy theory.

_____________________________________________________________

 

THE LIE OF THE CENTURY

www.whatreallyhappened.com

There is nothing new in a government lying to their people to start a war.

Indeed because most people prefer living in peace to bloody and horrific

death in war, any government that desires to initiate a war usually lies to

their people to create the illusion that support for the war is the only possible

choice they can make.

__________________________________________________________

FBI Is Taking Another Look at Forged Prewar Intelligence

By Peter Wallsten, Tom Hamburger and Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writers

December 3, 2005

WASHINGTON — The FBI has reopened an inquiry into one of the most

intriguing aspects of the pre-Iraq war intelligence fiasco: how the Bush

administration came to rely on forged documents linking Iraq to nuclear

weapons materials as part of its justification for the invasion.

____________________________________________________________

The White House Criminal Conspiracy

By Elizabeth de la Vega

Legally, there are no significant differences between the investor fraud

perpetrated by Enron CEO Ken Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud

perpetrated by George W. Bush. Both involved persons in authority who

used half-truths and recklessly false statements to manipulate people who

trusted them. There is, however, a practical difference: The presidential

fraud is wider in scope and far graver in its consequences than the Enron

fraud. Yet thus far the public seems paralyzed.

_____________________________________________

Big Star-Spangled Lies for War

    By Norman Solomon
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Monday 08 August 2005

    A lot of people want to believe that the current war on Iraq is some kind of 

aberration - a radical departure from the previous baseline of US foreign policy. 

That's a comforting illusion.

    Yes, the current administration in Washington is notable for the extreme mendacity 

and calculated idiocy of its claims. But - decade after decade - the propaganda fuel 

for one US war after another has flowed from a standard set of lies.

_________________________________________________________

George W. Bush is a Goddamn Liar 

If George W. Bush tells us that we invaded Iraq because Saddam did not
let the inspectors in, and we all know that the inspectors were indeed
let in, then how does anyone not realize we are being lied to about
the reason for going to war? It is SO OBVIOUS!
_________________________________________________________

UK MP George Galloway Calls for Bush, Blair, Koizumi, and 

Berlusconi to Stand Trial

Must See Video

_____________________________________________________

Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements

on Iraq-237 Lies of the Bush Administration

Posted July 4, 2005

___________________________________________________-

As New Revelations Surface in London, Congressman

Readies New Questions for Defense Secretary

As the rest of Congress shuffles off to their Memorial Day recess,

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is drafting a letter to Defense Secretary —

Donald Rumsfeld seeking answers after a report in the Sunday London Times

revealed the U.S. and Britain may have sought to goad Iraq into war even

as UN negotiations were ongoing, RAW STORY has learned.

A staffer said the congressman called the latest revelations "the smoking

bullet in the smoking gun."

Conyers' early draft, leaked to RAW STORY, raises a battery of questions

surrounding the Administration's plans for the Iraq war.

"If true, these assertions indicate that not only had our nation secretly and

perhaps illegally agreed to go to war by the summer of 2002, but that we

had gone on to take specific and tangible military actions before asking

Congress or the United Nations for authority," the ranking Democrat on the

House Judiciary Committee pens.

_______________________________________________________

Video Of The Full Testimony Of British MP George Galloway 

Before The U.S. Senate

This is a must watch Video!!

__________________________________________________________

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Scott Ritter
Saturday May 21, 2005
The Guardian
In the recent parliamentary elections, the British people, given the
choice between standing for the rule of law or embracing partisan
politics, chose the latter, voting with their pocketbooks, even
though it meant re-electing a man who led Britain into an illegal
war of aggression, based on lies and misrepresentation of fact.

_____________________________________________________________

British Memo Reopens War Claim
    By Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva
    The Chicago Tribune
    Tuesday 17 May 2005
Leaked briefing says US intelligence facts `fixed' around policy.
    Washington - A British official's report that the Bush
administration appeared intent on invading Iraq long before it
acknowledged as much or sought Congress' approval--and that
it "fixed" intelligence to fit its intention--has caused a stir in
Britain.
    But the potentially explosive revelation has proven to be
something of a dud in the United States . The White House has denied
the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to
it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or
unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for
the war.
___________________________________________________________

Blair faces US probe over secret Iraq invasion plan
Tony Allen-Mills and Tom Pattinson

Posted May 21, 2005

SENIOR American congressmen are considering sending a delegation to London to investigate Britain ’s role in preparations for the war in Iraq.  

___________________________________________________________

'CONCERNED CITIZENS'
Inspired by Kos diary, bloggers take on U.S. over 2002  

Iraq planning memo

By John Byrne 

Posted May 21, 2005

What do a communications manager from an industrial multinational, a law

student, a graphic 

designer and a Canadian civil servant have in common?

The answer? DowningStreetMemo.com.

In response to U.S. media silence surrounding a pre-war memorandum leaked on 

the eve of the recent British elections, the foursome created a website referencing 

the memo written in the heart of British government, 10 Downing Street .

___________________________________________________________

Prewar Findings Worried Analysts

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 22, 2005

On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State 

of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq , the 

National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to 

bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and 

biological weapons or programs.

The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national 

intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell 

investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according 

to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee

on Intelligence.

____________________________________________________________

 

Chalabi's Hands Now
Deep In The Cookie Jar
Posted May 17, 2005
HE'S BACK
 
If you ask anyone who the most powerful person is in
Iraq, you may get varied answers: the stooge prime
minister; the stooge president; or even Sistani. They
are all wrong. The most powerful person is Ahmed
Chalabi. That is not a typo.

____________________________________________________

Intelligence reports refutes U.S. claims of Iraq-Qaeda link

Posted May 9, 2005

A top Democratic senator released formerly classified documents

that he said undercut top U.S. officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a

link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Al-Qaeda group.

_______________________________________________________

IS THE FIX ON CHALABI ALREADY IN?

Posted May 9, 2005

The news media is reporting, with much theo-praise, that the new

Iraqi MPs have appointed people to several cabinet posts, ending

months of fighting. The New York Times reported: "Almost three

months after the January elections, Iraq 's national assembly...created

the first elected government in Iraqi history."

ENDGAME: The most important cabinet position in Iraq , the Oil

Ministry, is now filled by a spy, an embezzler, a liar and a fraud named

Ahmad Chalabi. Our fraud, I should clarify.

________________________________________________________

SECRET PLANS
Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers 

on secret Iraq plan

Posted May 7, 2005

Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by 

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions 

about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

________________________________________________

A Fig Leaf Of Legality (has disappeared)
John Prados
May 4, 2005
John Prados is a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in
Washington, DC. He is author of Hoodwinked: The Documents

That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War (The New Press).

It has been rumored that the brief, antiseptic legal opinion-citing that a
legal basis for the Iraq war did exist-that British Prime Minister Tony
Blair received from his attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, did not actually
reflect the advice of the top British government lawyer. That turns out to
be true.
__________________________________________________________

IS THE FIX  ON- CHALABI ALREADY IN?

Posted May 1, 2005

ENDGAME: The most important cabinet position in Iraq , the Oil Ministry, is

now filled by a spy, an embezzler, a liar and a fraud named Ahmad Chalabi.

Our fraud, I should clarify.

__________________________________________________________

"Darned Good Intelligence"

By WilliamPitt,

Thu Mar 31st, 2005 at 12:21:52 PM EST

Bush's hand-picked crew of whitewashers has put out a report blaming the 

entire Iraq debacle on the intelligence community. The report is a farce, a 

fraud, evidence that the White House has managed to win its little war with 

CIA by sticking Goss in there and silencing whistleblowers by way of 

Plame-like intimidation. The corporate news media, of course, has helped.

My immediate thought: If the intelligence was so bad, so wrong, why are we still there?

____________________________________________________________

The Crime and the Cover-Up
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 21 July 2003

The scandal axiom in Washington states that it is not the crime that destroys you, but the 

cover-up. Today in Washington you can hear terms like 'Iraqgate' and 'Weaponsgate' 

bandied about, but such obtuse labels do not provide an explanation for the profound 

movements that are taking place.

Clearly, there is a scandal brewing over the Iraq war and the Bush administration claims 

of Iraqi weapons arsenals that led to the shooting. Clearly, there is a cover-up taking place. 

Yet this instance, the crimes that have led to the cover-up are worse by orders of magnitude 

than the cover-up itself.

The simple fact is that America went to war in Iraq because George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, 

Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and virtually every other public face within 

this administration vowed that Iraq had vast stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear 

weapons. America went to war because these people vowed that Iraq had direct connections 

to al Qaeda, and by inference to the attacks of September 11.

 ____________________________________________________________

Saddam's desperate offers to stave off war

Posted April 12, 2005

In the few weeks before its fall, Iraq's Ba'athist regime made a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington, promising to hold elections and even to allow US troops to search for banned weapons. But the advances were all rejected by the Bush administration, according to intermediaries involved in the talks. 

______________________________________________________________

The Missing WMD Report
        David Corn, March 24, 2005

    Below is a piece I wrote for the latest issue of The Nation. It seems that
    Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee,
    wants to break the promise he made last year to investigate whether the
    Bush administration misrepresented the prewar intelligence on WMDs. What a
    surprise.

____________________________________________________________

Lets Not Forget: Bush Planned Iraq  

   'Regime Change' Before Becoming President 

    A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and 

    his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' 

     even before he took power in January 2001.  

_______________________________________________________

 Not Everyone Got it Wrong on Iraqi WMDs

          By Scott Ritterof

          Houston Chronicle

          Thursday 05 February 2004

The fact is, Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter, and the scores of intelligence

      professionals, retired or still in service, who studied Iraq and its WMD

      capabilities, are reasonable men. They got it right. The Bush

      administration, in its rush to ward war, ignored their advice and the body of

      factual data they used, and instead relied on rumor, speculation,

      exaggeration and falsification to mislead the American people and their

      elected representatives in to supporting a war that is rapidly turning in to

      a quagmire. They knew the truth about Iraq 's WMD.

      Sadly, no one listened

______________________________________________________

Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month
    Critical September Report to Be Final Word

   By Dafna Linzer
   Washington Post Staff Writer
   Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A01

  The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in

Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush

ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA

weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley .

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