Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Bush's speech
Three items from Bush's press conference yesterday.
From Busy, Busy, Busy,
Discussing the War on Terror and (le'havdil) Operation Iraqi Freedom today, Mr. Bush said:
... I don't want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.
Which brings to mind other typical uses of this particular semantic construct...
- ... I was very careful never to say you couldn't lose money.
- ... I was very careful never to say I love you.
- ... I was very careful never to say I was still on the pill.
- ... I was very careful never to say I've been tested recently.
Josh Marshall notes the excerpt that made me physically cringe,
There's so much water under the bridge at this point. But the president just won't stop lying about the immediate exigencies of his decision to go to war. Here's how he described it this morning in an exchange with Helen Thomas ...
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences ... and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.
Of course, that's not what happened. We were there. We remember. It wasn't a century ago. We got the resolution passed. Saddam called our bluff and allowed the inspectors in. President Bush pressed ahead with the invasion.
Yesterday wasn't the first time Bush uttered that lie ... he initially spun this short yarn, ironically, with Kofi Anan at his side.
To top off the trifecta, prior to claiming "I also saw a threat in Iraq", Bush predictably addressed Thomas' query on Iraq by speaking of Afghanistan and 9/11 (full video of exchange).
// posted by Erik @ 3/22/2006 09:05:00 PM
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Comments:
This only bothers you because it is true.
Here's an article about the 2002/2003 UN inspections in your city's alternative weekly by an American inspector: http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=63
Excerpt: The other striking difference in this trip [as opposed to the inspector's 1997 trip] was how extremely cooperative just about every Iraqi was, even when we inspected the undeclared sites that were targeted based on intel. The Iraqis were running for us (something Iraqi adults don't normally do) and were bending over backwards to cooperate.
The article ends with "The final questions, of course, are did the regime still have visions of conquest and terror outside its borders and should we have liberated the Iraqi people from their oppressed lives of squalor and terror?
Oh, hell yes!"
Seems like the inpsector who wrote this article thinks Operation Iraqi Freedom was a good thing.
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