By CRISTINA FERNANDEZ-PEREDA, ADINA YOUNG and LIZ ANDERSON
Observer Staff
Jan. 23, 2008

President Bush and seven of his top aides made 935 false statements about the threat posed by Iraq in the two years following the September 11 attacks, according to a study by The Center for Public Integrity and The Fund for Independence in Journalism released today.

The study, “Iraq-The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War,” documents every public statement (in speeches, briefings, interviews and testimonies), made by eight top Bush administration officials between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2003 regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.

The Center for Public Integrity partnered with the Fund for Independence in Journalism to publish the War Card, a comprehensive database of all public statements made by the top eight officials in the Bush administration between the September 11 attacks and invasion of Iraq. Click here to check out the site.

“In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003,” Charles Lewis, president of The Fund for Independence in Journalism, said.

The centerpiece of the study is a 380,000-word database of public statements posted Tuesday night on the Center for Public Integrity web site, which was almost impossible to access on Wednesday morning due to traffic. Early Wednesday, more than 500 media outlets reported on the results.

The results were presented by Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, as “a public service and as an accessible historic record.”

Observer photo by ADINA YOUNG.
Chuck Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity describes the center’s “Iraq: The War Card” project at a press conference on Wednesday.

The false statements made by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McLellan are juxtaposed to “what they said versus what they knew privately,” Charles Lewis said.

Vice President Dick Cheney said on August 26, 2002 in a national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars addressed, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”

This statement is now known to be false. During a closed Senate Intelligence Committee meeting, CIA Directory George Tenet said that no National Intelligence Estimate had been done regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for years.

Also, it had never been requested by the White House. The CIA quickly gathered information for a report in three weeks, instead of the usual six to 10 months.

Even though President Bush did not have the report, he began giving speeches about Iraq. He said, for instance, in a national radio address that “the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq.”

There were similar false statements made by Bush in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003 and by Powell at a United Nations Security Council address on February 5, 2003.

Powell said, “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite you some examples, and these are from human sources.” Both of his sources were unreliable, one being an Iraqi detainee and the other an Iraqi con artist.

“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have any meaningful ties to al Qaeda.” Lewis said.

Lewis cited numerous bipartisan government investigations, including the 9/11 Commission and the multinational Iraq survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report,” concluded that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

President Bush had the most false statements about weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda in Iraq, with 260. He is followed by Secretary of State Colin Powell with 254, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer with 109.

“What we don’t know is who directed it,” Lewis said. “No one has e-mail traffic. No one knows about meetings that were held and what days. No one has stepped forward to take full responsibility for the campaign that was waged.”

Lewis stated that America went to war nearly five years ago after an orchestrated campaign of false statements by the nation’s top officials.

“We haven’t seen a campaign by a president to go to war like this, I don’t think, perhaps since Franklin D. Roosevelt, maybe, 60 years ago,” Lewis said.