SOTU statement NOT even TECHNICALLY accurate!

Here's the specific statement: "The British government has 'LEARNED' that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Bush did not merely state, as his defenders cry, that Britain had "SAID" that Saddam had recently sought to buy uranium from Niger. Had Bush said that, such a statement would have been technically true. But...he did not state that. What Bush actually stated was that Britain "LEARNED" that Saddam had recently tried to buy uranium from Niger, "learned" being a definitive conclusion, a fait acompli. If you think that 1 + 1 = 3, then you have not learned it. You only think you have learned it, and you have learned it only when you know that 1 + 1 =2. So again, Bush did not merely state that Britain had "SAID" that, but that it had "LEARNED" that. So a close reading shows that EVEN THE ACTUAL WORDS USED BY THE PRESIDENT WERE IN FACT FALSE! The British government did NOT learn that Saddam had recently sought the uranium. They NEVER learned that. They THOUGHT they had learned that. And they since had LEARNED (at a point BEFORE the speech), that the intelligence was false. The president's statement in the speech was in fact a lie, both technically and effectively, and the administration knew it! Other than using the word "said", as noted above, for it to have been an honest statement, whether technically or effectively honest, it had to have included words to the effect of "The British government AT ONE POINT THOUGHT THEY HAD learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa", which of course would not have been a statement that served the president's purposes. And to be fully accurate, they would have had to have added the words "but has since learned that their evidence of such activity was false". Bush said none of the true statements. The British NEVER ACTUALLY learned "that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa".....never! The statement is false in every way. This story will not die. The Bush administration, stupidly so, have, with their own words, caught themselves. They are hoping that it will be overlooked that Bush used a term of finality, "learned", and did not in fact use the specifically mentioned term of ambiguity, "said". They are caught. And now they cannot take back the words that will haunt them.

i hadnt even thought of what you just wrote. Im praying that this will bring this buffoon down.

beyond the faux headline "CIA takes blame"

I saw my Greek friend George S of ABC saying that they had to discuss "how the public will hear it and how the public will react to the CIA taking the fall" for Bush - YET the CIA did not take the fall, and indeed could not since it was a Bush phrase, a Bush lie, a gross deception by someone who knew it was a deception.

George's line is the Rove line - and I am tired of his being a Bush team member.

It will have legs and there will be nothing the Bush people will be able to say IF the word is spread about what I pointed out above. Once the media catches on, IF it can be made to catch on, I don't think in this case that they can come up with an argument good enough to help Bush. This afternoon I emailed these points to Media Whores Online and they now have begun to expose the same thoughts about which one of the two words "said" and "learned" were used, along with highlighting the differing implications derived from using the two different words. What is important is that the word has begun to get out and NEEDS to get out.

This point is also presented here on Eschaton / Atrios:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_07_06_atrios_archive.html#105797942320907350

that Bush did not know that the information was false. In fact, it implies exactly the opposite by apologizing for not ensuring that the information was removed from the speech rather than allowing Bush to attribute the claim to the British. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the CIA put up a fight about Bush making the assertion on the basis of US intelligence and only gave in when the Whitehouse changed it to blame the British, which is why Tenet claims that it was "technicall accurate."

Glad you noticed that!

It really is refreshing communicating with thinking people. The "So glad I voted for Bush" people were really starting to depress me.

Hopefully the word gets out and the Bush people's effort to LIE AGAIN and try and set up the paradigm "we only stated that the British SAID that Saddam tried to buy the uranium from Niger, and that is technically true" fails because everyone sees that as another lie. If that happens, and if the word is spread, as it should, I don't see an out for Bush, and in fact, another lie about the first lie will make things worse.

:hi:

Orwell's world. :eyes:

unfortunately, Blair is sticking to his guns.

he says that they have proof of Iraq's seeking to buy nuclear material.

he refuses to reveal said "proof," at this point.

so, until he does, or is revealed as a liar himself, the junta can fall back on this defense

right?


for your analysis to be correct (which I think it is), you have to start from the point at which the British intel can be demonstrably proven false

It is demonstrably false that the British "learned" about the effort to buy uranium. They did not learn that. They only thought they learned that, and in fact, by the time of the speech, they had actually "learned" that their intelligence was false. And Bush did NOT state that the British "said" that, which would have been technically true. He stated that they "learned" that, a provable lie! He told a lie in the SOTU, and now is even lying about THAT!

Blair still insists that they have undisclosed proof of Iraq's seeking uranium.

I agree with your analysis, but it applies only AFTER the disposition of whatever intelligence data the poodle has buried under his own rosebush.

But few people have picked up on Tenet's careful parsing of words, particularly where he says that the Niger claims "had not yet been determined to be forgeries," when the CIA raised concerns about them with the NSC staff.

First, they were already widely considered to be forgeries by people in the CIA and at the State Department. Second, if the CIA warned the NSC that they had little confidence in the documents, we're back at square one: the White House knowingly used bogus information to build the case for war.

IMO however, I think our emphasis should not be on technicalities.

The whole emphasis of his SOTU speech and other statements were an obvious effort to mislead the American people, the congress, the UN and the world - about a subject that rises to the highest level of state responsibilty.

We should not be quibbling about technicalities here - as if it were a legal question about a blow job. This matter concerns the life and death of millions of people throughout the world - and concievably the future of the huiman race on earth.

Statements from our president in this matter should stand up to the highest possible scrutiny in terms of honesty and clarity. There should not be the slightest question that they could be even minconstrued by anyone - much less be blatantly dishonest.

What happened is terribly damaging to our reputation. Worse, it is now obvious that we now all live in a world where the strongest power on earth, with the abilty to destroy most life on the planet, has been shown to have wielded power capriciously, for political motives.

That damage to our reputation and the resultant rise in insecurity in the world is what I find impeachable.

I am using technicalities because they are trying to use a technicality to save their rear ends. I am just showing that even the technicality they are using to coverup the falsehood of the speech is itself false! Yes, they should be held to a high standard of truthfulness when it comes to life and death issues. But even their technical out is false, in addition to their overall original intent of portraying a falsehood, whether technically true (which it isn't) or whether it is false.

I just think that the bigger question is so much more important.

I'd hate to see us get bogged down in parsing word meanings and arguing over where the comma should be in the sentence.

But you are factually correct - and it does support his complicity in a lie.

I am just specifically whacking their purported "out". We must attack the way they are trying to wiggle out of this!