(Ari) Fleischer: U.S. ‘got it wrong’ on Iraq

Source: Idaho Mountain Express

Had President George W. Bush received accurate information about Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, he probably would not have ordered an invasion of Iraq, former presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told an audience in Ketchum last Thursday.

Fleischer, who served in the Bush administration from January 2001 to July 2003, spoke at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood as part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts' Lecture Series.

"We were unequivocally told by the CIA that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons," he said. "The CIA made its best estimates. (But) it was a mistake. We got it wrong."

Read more: http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005135777

Americans knew it was a lie and demonstrated in the streets expressing their outrage at the lie.

Bush and Ari simply did not ask enough questions. According to The Price of Loyalty which is a book based on Paul O'Neill's experiences in the Bush cabinet, Bush and his chums in the White House were already deciding how to divide Iraq's oil fields in their first months in office.

Ari is lying. Bush went into office with the plan of invading Iraq. The CIA and Woo did the same thing -- prepare documents giving Bush the green light to commit the crimes he wanted to commit. The CIA prepared back-up so that he could invade Iraq. Woo prepared the back-up so that Bush could authorize torture.

There is a pattern to Bush's behavior. It's called plausible denial. Remember, "I wasn't in the loop." GWB learned this trick from GHWB. It's a family thing.

discussed - every time!

They just wanted war for their own purposes.

"Bullshit." He KNEW and unless he is blind, deaf and dumb he's also accountable. F em all!

I think, with Ari making this statement, we are seeing the moment that the Bush Administration picked to bring their real constituents down easy. They know the gig is up, so the next best thing is to put the blame on someone else.

Because, this is half-assed admission of Ari's was not for our sake, but for the Republicans and blue dogs that believed in them, and still might believe.

In an interview with the Scottish Sunday Herald, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Larry C. Johnson said the OSP was "dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace. lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. It's a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

the invasion had always been in their plans (PNAC). any excuse would have sufficed.

And they need to be held accountable. And finally held in custody.

posted in wrong place

:thumbsup:

Look at how Rumsfield created his own intelligence unit within the Pentagon. They needed intel to meet their needs, not intel that reflected the truth.

The CIA wouldn't say what they wanted them to say.

Here's the real idiotic, simple and undeniable obvious truth: NOBODY came running to them hollering about any danger, and when they tried to get credible sources to even substantiate that there was a danger, they couldn't even get THAT. This very clearly shows that they were going out of their way to gin up an excuse for a war of conquest against a sovereign nation. It's very simple and clear: NOBODY cried "fire" or anything of the sort, and they couldn't even get reasonable cover from people in their own camp.

This is total bullshit, and it's good that it keeps coming up, because it just digs them in deeper.

New Yorkers or any other of the blue states.

based on your bosses' greed for oil and you damn well know it!

that lumps him in with Jessica Gomes. How about Spokesghoul

Go away, Ari.

I think it's pretty clear now that they're not going to be able to alter history as they had planned.

were pushing on all the talk shows.

and no matter how many times you wash your hands, you will never get the blood off. Go to hell.

fliesher can't tell truth (once a person is known as a liar, that person's words must be considered dishonest as a matter of principle and self preservation- that's God's law)
the fascists (rightwing reactionaries in the M,I complex) murdered several hundred US police/firemen on 911....so one can imagine how quick easily they lie about anything that affects them

Essentially, they "unequivocally told" themselves "that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons". Cheney made sure this was done through the CIA and other resources. Everybody knows this, right?

"Multiple visits to the CIA by the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush Administration policy objectives, intelligence officials said.

...

Mr Cheney took the lead in the Administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction.

The visits "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here", one agency official said."


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/05/1054700335400.html

Hey Ari remember these greatest hits?

The White House Iraq Group and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans whose job it was
was to cherry pick intel about WMDs and the terrorist threat from Saddam.

Sending Powell to the U.N. to tell of the mobile biological weapons labs



(even though the White House knew the anthrax came from the U.S. Army)

Or kicking the inspectors out of Iraq in order to start bombing

You MoFo Bastid.

From day one I wanted slap you in your superior, smirking, ugly ass mug with a sledge hammer.

Disappear forever and think about your miserable life.

LIAR. COMPLICIT.

that I have no doubt he is full of shit now referring to being told by the CIA. Not our fault, we just got bad information.

:grr:

.

up until the very end, you worthless POS. :puke:

Go away! Nobody cares what you have to say.

bush-nurenburgjpg

...leadership on the explicit understanding that they would lie as needed to advance your partisan and ideological goals. You ASKED for lies, now don't claim you didn't know you were getting them.

Ass.

disgustedly,
Bright

It's bad enough to lie for your own personal gain, but when those lies lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, it just boggles my mind.

tried to find ways to get into Iraq. Ari is just trying to cover their ass by blaming the CIA.

"got it wrong" sounds so much nicer than invaded a country for money and killed and crippled millions more for money and continue to do so today, doesn't it?

They had plenty of experts who told them the facts, which they ignored.

I wish they'd stop lying. It isn't fooling anyone.

And why isn't he in jail for his role in outing an undercover agent?

nice try, though...not.

shit what that cretinous,lying, morally dead fuck thinks?

they have media access. If this fucker was in prison at Marion or the Hague, we wouldn't have to hear this bullshit.

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -- W. Bush, State of the Union Address (1/28/2003)

The CIA told W and the White House many many times they could not confirm this and it should not be in the State of the Union Address.

.... crazy too.

Or the letter from Africa that told of the yellowcake uranium going to Iraq had people's names
misspelled and that one of the sources listed on the "Italian Letters" had been dead for years ...
the CIA had a low level person look at the letter and he debunked it in less 30 minutes.


Ari is a proven liar.


BTW to any Freeper, Rush Limbaugh, or right winger please check up on my facts.

We were lied into an unneeded war to make money and to steal oil. BOTTOM LINE

It is just another attempt to revise history. We knew that Saddam had no WMD of any kind before the invasion even started. The UN was on the ground in Iraq and its inspectors told us that. Ari and his friends instead choose to ignore the UN inspection report and plunged headlong into an optional and costly war. Besides, Powell said that the CIA report was garbage so why would anybody want to hang their hat on something that insiders called garbage. To make the war "legal" it was necessary for Bush to claim that Saddam wouldn't let the UN inspectors in. Bush never explained his meaning of the word "in" because it can't be any normal usage of that word. Bush actually kicked the inspectors out so he could start his invasion. Congress authorized the use of force should Saddam not let the inspectors in. The use of force language was specific to full, complete inspections. Congress did not authorize the invasion as it happened because compliance had been met. Ari, how was the invasion legal? Nobody has ever explained that to me. Congress did not authorize the war that unfolded, making Bush a war criminal. There is a reason Bush cannot travel abroad.

And if any Republican lurkers don't believe you, they need only read the April 2004 edition of Vanity Fair. It is probably available in their local library or from Vanity Fair. The entire chronology of the days prior to Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq is explained there.

There is no excuse for ignorance on this point any more.

criminals. Maybe even some or all members of some Senate Committees.

Luckily for all of you, no one wants to prosecute, though, thereby setting just a "swell" precedent and emboldening war criminals generally. Doesn't make you or your fellow criminals suck any less in our eyes, though, espeially since you're still lying about having been taken in by faulty intel.

Hell, if I knew the intel was bs, so did all of you. My only question is, when will you and your fellow criminals finally shut up and sit down?

Ari is and always has been a lying little shit.

Just program any lie and he will tell it with a straight face and defend it with even more outrageous lies. The mainstream media stenographers will report it without a single word about its variance from reality, common sense and history.

The invasion was planned since the late 90s. They were just looking for a timely excuse. Duh.

Ari always was an "anything for Israel" guy. The paradox is that the war
has actually caused the U.S. and Israel to lose credibility worldwide.
It also led to the installation of a predominantly Shia government.
In the long run that won't be good for Israel either. I'm sure Ari and
Cheney and their friends made lots of money off the deaths of over
300,000 people though. Nice work Ari you piece of shit.

And that's how we were treated for eight agonizing years. Hell, just like DaddyBush can't remember where he was on 11-22-63, Fleisher can't remember that W was talking about invading Iraq while he was still governor.

Not even a good try, Ari. You damn well knew what you were signing on to, you knew what they were and what they were up to -- you had to in order to dance around them.

You can now stop looking for stupid people who believe your lies; there aren't enough of them to get you off this hook.


-

Where were the calls for the heads of the CIA after that fact was discovered in 2003?

The same applies for the EXCUSE used by those "Democrats" who voted to give Bush the "Authorization to Use Force".
If Bush "fooled you", why didn't you STAND UP when he used his "authorization"?

Unfortunately Barack Obama, Robert Gates, et all would concur with Mr Fleischer, and anyone who thinks we were deliberately lied into a war for profit is officially a kooky conspiracy theorist.

Independent agencies
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

United States Department of Defense
Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA)
Army Military Intelligence (MI)
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Marine Corps Intelligence
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
National Security Agency (NSA)
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

United States Department of Energy
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI)

United States Department of Homeland Security
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A)
Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI)

United States Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

United States Department of State
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)

United States Department of the Treasury
Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI)<6>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community

And these fuckers still insist they got the intelligence wrong?

INDICT AND IMPRISON NOW!!!

Sorry, Ari, but when the intelligence is manipulated by the policymakers to "fix facts to the policy," that's not a mistake; it's a war crime on its face.

because he was telling the public that there were no WMDs in Iraq. We remember you, Ari and the role you played in that crime.

They really do believe the public is stupid.

He ran to the prosecutor to save his own rear end when he thought he might be indicted in the Plame investigation. He's a coward also.

Having to continuously listen to these lying war criminals is the result of having abandoned the rule of law.

Ari they better watch what they say Fleischer reminds me each time he opens his mouth, how tragic it is that huge crimes were committed by this gang and no one was ever held accountable.

YOU got it wrong, you lying, evil sack of shit.

We found them."

George Worstpresidentever in an interview in Poland following the Iraq invasion.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4882.htm

DOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUCHE

But his skill is insufficient to the task. He could just as well try to raise the people by the lies he helped peddle.

Even Tariq Aziz deserves better than that.

Fleiser' argument works for why they would ask for the authority, but not for why Bush used it 6 months later.

he'll die before he reveals there was NO STOPPING his bosses from the invasion of Iraq.

...many of us KNEW that without benefit of the CIA's fudged reports (fudged ON BEHALF of your boss's boss, Darth Cheney).

"The CIA made its best estimates. (But) it was a mistake. We got it wrong."

....yep, there was a mistake, but we got it wrong.

If Bush and his administration had listened to what others were saying instead of being in such a hurry to "Kick Saddam's ass", we wouldn't be in this mess. But, you guys knew it all and no one could convince you otherwise...

Fuck you, asshole.