How the Bush administration and the NYT lied America into war

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9969037/

<snip>The Bush administration had assembled a media strategy team known as the White House Iraq Group. It consisted of top officials, including those in the vice president‘s office whose goals starting after Labor Day was to sell a war on Iraq, which had no detectable role on 9/11.

On September 7, 2002, White House chief of staff Andy Card referred to the effort in an interview with The New York Times and said, quote, from a marketing point of view, you don‘t introduce new products in August.

The next day, the White House marketers delivered their product, a New York Times front page story. U.S. says Hussein intensifies quest for A-Bomb parts. Judy Miller attributing the story to Bush administration officials reported, quote, Iraq has stepped up it‘s quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb. In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes meant for Iraq‘s nuclear program.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a story in The New York Times this morning...

SHUSTER: ... Vice president Cheney in a scheduled appearance on Meet the Press that same day pointed to the story and added...

CHENEY: ... That he is in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

SHUSTER: Cheney was not the only scheduled guest that day pushing The New York Times story and hammering the nuclear argument. In a unique media blitz, the White House dispatched five A-list administration officials to the television airwaves, one to each of the Sunday talk shows.

Colin Powell on FOX News Sunday, said about Saddam, quote, we saw in reporting just this morning, he is still trying to acquire, for example, some of the specialized aluminum tubing one needs to develop centrifuges.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, FORMER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Our intelligence is always imperfect and we usually find out that what we don‘t know is the most troublesome. In this case, so we don‘t know. Our estimate is at this point he does not have nuclear weapon, but he wants one.

SHUSTER: On CNN, when Condoleezza Rice was asked if it‘s possible the tube were not for nuclear weapons, she replied...

CONDOLEEZZA RICA, SECRETARY OF STATE: ... We don‘t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

SHUSTER: The nuclear claims led the papers and the nightly newscasts for two days in a row. Then on 9/11...

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... We will not relent until justice is done and our nation is secure. What our enemies have begun, we will finish.

SHUSTER: The next day at the United Nations...

BUSH: ... Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.