How did Bush, Cheney, Etc. know there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Question

Some people say "Bush lied" about WMDs. If that's true, then he had to know, or at least believe, they were NOT there. Is that what people really believe? Just curious. Thanks.

Answer 1

Sadly, yes, that's what people believe. It's so easy to blame Bush for all that's wrong in our country. However, they fail to blame Congress as well. Congress saw those exact same reports. They voted to invade Iraq based on those documents. Democrats and Republicans. Why blame Bush?? Everyone had the same documents and believe it to be true. There's NO lie in that.

Our Congress and many other countries all had the same intelligence reports. They knew the WMD's were there. Don't forget Saddam's refusal to let the UN inspectors in. It's easy to blame Bush and say he lied. It's not true though....there was no lie and there's documents that date back to Clinton that prove this.

Besides, if you watch the news and pay attention to our military that are actually over their doing their job and protecting this country, WMD's have been found. Lots of WMD materials and equipment have been confiscated. No, it's not the large quantity we expected to find, but they were there. Just because Suddam had time to move them, doesn't mean it was a lie.

Answer 2

In the UK we were told the same 'lies' by Tony Blair as US citizens. In the 2 years after the war began the true picture started to appear. A dossier from our intelligence sources, which the government had published in support of the war, was found to have had every statement taken out of context; eg 'Saddam Hussein has attempted to buy nuclear materials from Africa (but there is absolutely no evidence that he has been successful)' was published without the bracketed information.
'Saddam Hussein desires to build wmds (though is many years away from assembling the most basic of weaponry). These edits were carried out by Tony Blairs press office, and then signed off by 1 of the 4 chiefs of our intelligence services, this chief has since been promoted, although clearly the info he signed off on was seriously flawed and has led to 100,000s of deaths. In the private sector he would have been fired.
From reports in the UK, George W held a meeting with Tony in the September prior to the war, where it was decided that an invasion WAS going to happen, by which stage Hans Blix and his team had been in Iraq for exactly 2 weeks. As a result it shows that governments have distorted the picture, and that the US was going to finfish the job Daddy hadn't, and that wmds were purely the cover story, and were never a factor in either leaders plans, just a way of selling it to Congress, House of Commons etc, as well as the people.
Don't forget that George Snr sold Iraq wmds in the form of Anthrax.
Also, following 9/11, whose budgets got bigger; Health, Education, Public Transport - No
FBI, CIA, Pentagon - Yes.
Who supplied the false details - FBI,CIA,Pentagon.
Plausible deniability justs means your President can't trust his own staff, yet they too get promoted. Historically, you may also like to remember that the US administration knew that Pearl Harbour was going to be bombed, moved most of its fleet out, leaving just enough to maintain a juicy target for the Japanese. This information was supplied by the UK government, and the administration felt that the loss of US lives was justified, so politically the US could enter the Second World War (& yes, I am grateful for that). Yet there was no way the president was going to tell his electorate that he had known and sacrificed these lives. Maybe the CIA didn't really take 3 days to translate that info regarding 9/11, but people were expendable again.

Answer 3

As someone who never voted for him either time I do try to stay open minded about it. I think he really thought they had the weapons and he was doing the world a favor. but it ends up they didn't have them or don't anymore if they did. I never agreed with the invasion of Iraq because even if they did have WMD now they aren't under the control of Saddam. I'd rather his hand be on the button then some terrorist that was going to attack the USA. Iraq is a mess and going to take years to clean up.

Answer 4

They didn't lie.

Everybody, Republicans, Democrats, the British, French, Germans, Russians, Israelis, heck, even the Iraqi's - thought that they had WMD.

You can probably find footage somewhere of people like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry - all of them talking about Iraq having WMD.

It's a case of bad intelligence.

Oh, and then there's this whole Joe Wilson "scandal" - where he wrote an op-ed piece saying there was no truth to the report that Iraq was trying to get "yellow cake" (enriched uranium I believe) from Niger.

Except for the Senate Intelligence committee (I believe) - and the 9/11 Commission - both concluded that his report, rather than contradicting the claim (that Iraq was trying to get yellow cake from Niger) - actually strengthed the case.

Let's face it - if somebody tells you something - and you believe it to be true - and you go around repeating it. If it turns out to be false - does that make you a liar?

Because that's what happened to Bush.

Answer 5

Ever heard of the CIA? Are you aware that the US has sattelites that can track you walking around their garden? How hard do you think it would have been to bribe people in Saddam's administration for information?

What about North Korea? Perhaps Bush isn't sure whether they have WMDs as well eh? They certainly haven't got enough oil to warrant an invasion.

Answer 6

My gut feeling is that they (the current administration) wanted ANY EXCUSE to invade Iraq to gain a foothold in the Middle East for oil reasons, and what better way for them to do so by using some much practiced and pre-meditated fear mongering and wave about the fairly invented excuse of WMD's.

I strongly feel that Bush went along with the charade as Commander In Chief in a willfully ignorant and devious way that is so typical of his intellectual and moral capacity, and that even in the absence of clear and compelling evidence of so called WMD's, he persued this for reasons that have little or nothing to do with any supposed war on terror.

The Bush administration lacks all credibility and any moral compass that points in the right direction on so many issues, and putting my trust into powerful people who have so many conflicts of interest and ties to big oil and business in charge of a war they began...is smart?

I should actually believe that the Bush administration have not tried to do revisionist history and manipulate the data to support their case for going into Iraq? Should I actually put my trust into such amoral people and believe a word they say about ANYTHING?

All the Bush administration has done over the last five plus years is do nothing but game and manipulate the general public on any and all issues they get behind or are against. If you take a cold look at the war and who is getting wealthy from it either directly or indirectly, that should help to clarify the truth....that is...unless you are also a die hard Neo-Con Bush supporter, and in that case you will just go along with the chorus for your own selfish reasons.

Answer 7

Watch the movie "Farenheit 9/11"....It will inform you all about the Bush/Cheney administration and their ties to Halliburton, the Saudi Arabians and how stood to profit from oil....Bush had his agendas all along....Think about it...does it make any sense that we knew that Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan hiding in the mountains somewhere yet we barely used our military troops to attempt to capture him. He is the person responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11....yet Bush chose to use our military resources to go after Saddam Hussein, a man who had no ties to the terrorist attacks whatsoever....where is the logic? We should have been using our manpower to go after Bin Laden but Bush all along was finishing up what his father started some years ago when he was in office. He has had his own agenda all along and Sept. 11 was the perfect excuse to put it into motion.

Now we have a crisis with North Korea and Bush is still hell bent on this war in Iraq even though he has all but destroyed the country, caused countless loss of life, civil war and ultimately furthered the terrorist movement....His methods of reasoning are at best ridiculous....

Answer 8

He didn't know that. He thought there WERE WMDs in Iraq.

Of course, the fact that they FOUND WMDs in Iraq (500 shells of sarin nerve gas) doesn't exonerate him for lying and saying there were WMDs in Iraq, when, in fact there were.

Hey, wait a minute......

Answer 9

Seems they used special mind tricks to fool a super majority of the House and Senate and even the entire nation. They even convinced Bill Clinton when he was in office.

http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html

Answer 10

They quoted reports that they knew were not reliable. They had knowingly spread misinformation to further their agenda.

The WMD's...trying to insist that there was a connections between Saddam and Bin Laden/Al Queda...desperate attempts (that worked!) to get what they want.

Bush is an oil tycoon...he is making money off of Iraqi oil...Cheney has ties with Haliburton...he is making money of the US government being in Iraq.

Talk about conflict of interest!