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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Prior to our invasion of Iraq the justification issue was debated  
thoroughly on this list. Each of us hopefully remembers with accuracy  
our position at that time. There were strong feelings. There were  
strong statements made. There was certainty. Many of us felt very  
strong about our conclusions. Finally, the truth is out. The Senate  
Intelligence Committee has issued its report.

Burn this into your brain. Tell your children about it. It may be a  
waste of time to show this to those who still believe the untruths we  
were given. There continue to be those among us who are gullible.

The next time a president urges us to war we must demand much higher  
standards. Know history or repeat mistakes.



The Truth About the War
Published: June 6, 2008

It took just a few months after the United States’ invasion of Iraq  
for the world to find out that Saddam Hussein had long abandoned his  
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. He was not training  
terrorists or colluding with Al Qaeda. The only real threat he posed  
was to his own countrymen.
It has taken five years to finally come to a reckoning over how much  
the Bush administration knowingly twisted and hyped intelligence to  
justify that invasion. On Thursday — after years of Republican  
stonewalling — a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee gave us  
as good a set of answers as we’re likely to get.

The report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that  
important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence  
reports. In other cases, he could have learned the truth if he had  
asked better questions or encouraged more honest answers. . . . .

The Senate report shows that the intelligence Mr. Bush had did not  
support those statements — or Mr. Rumsfeld’s that “every month that  
goes by, his W.M.D. programs are progressing, and he moves closer to  
his goal of possessing the capability to strike our population, and  
our allies, and hold them hostage to blackmail.”

Claims by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld that Iraq had longstanding ties  
to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups also were false, and the Senate  
committee’s report shows that the two men knew it, or should have.

We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq. But  
when the president withholds vital information from the public — or  
leads them to believe things that he knows are not true — to justify  
the invasion of another country, that is bad enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06fri1.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=35f8fa01bf143cec&ex=1212984000