The Truth About W

Bush has repeatedly denied any plans to bring back the draft amid speculation arising from the fact that our military is the most thinnly stretched that it has been since Vietnam . However, while Bush denies that his administration has any plans to re-institute the draft, the Selective Service Administration, an agency of the executive branch, which is headed by President Bush, is reportedly making contingency plans for drafting medical personel. To read more about this disturbing story, go to the this web site: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/politics/19draft.html?oref=login

Is the administration once again telling the American people one thing, while planning to do something entirely different?

The Bush administration justified our invasion of Iraq in 2003 by claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, Bush and his administration repeatedly claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that posed an imminent threat to the U.S.. However, these claims turned out to be false. After no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, the administration began to take a two pronged approach to cover its ass. First, it began to retroactively justify the invasion by claiming that it was a humanitarian effort designed to liberate the Iraqi people from the oppressive Hussein regime. Second, it began to shift the blame for the administration's lies about the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to faulty intelligence provided by the CIA.

Of course the truth is that the invasion of Iraq was anything but a humanitarian effort, and the Bush administration has repeatedly trumpeted questionable intelligence supporting their case for invading Iraq, while ignoring the vast majority of intelligence that weakened their case. Below, I have posted some important websites that I belive back up the above assertions. I encourage you to check out these websites, and decide for yourself.


THE LIBERATION JUSTIFICATION

Women in Iraq have suffered significantly since our invasion. Not only have many Iraqi women been forced to wear veils, but the incidence of rape and violence against women has also increased in the wake of all the chaos since our invasion. These articles describe the plight of women in Iraq since our invasion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2986962.stm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4091EFE3C5E0C758DDDA00894DB404482
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030813-052611-9458r

At the same time that the U.S. and U.K. allowed Baghdad hospitals and nuclear waste facilities to be looted [see these links: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79240&page=1
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97672&page=1 ], the U.S. and U.K. guarded the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. [See this link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79499&page=1 ] Doesn't this fact tell you something about our administration's priorities?

According to this USA Today article, 46% of Iraqis believe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has done more harm than good, while only 33% of Iraqis believe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has done more good than harm.
http://www.usatoday.com/advertising/popBehind2/popBehind2-window-unldPop.htm

For a good website that documents the situation on the ground in Iraq is Occupation Watch.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/

Also, you may want to check out these links, which document U.S. aide to Saddam Hussein during the 1980's when Hussein committed many of the atrocities that the Bush administration is now using to justify the March 2003 invasion.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/us_iraq_history_1_020917.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/World/2020_chemicalali030328.html


DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH ABOUT INTELLIGENCE SUPPORTING THE CLAIM THAT IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Multiple white house insiders including former Treasure Secretary Paul O'Neil, and counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke have come forward to admit that Bush was trying to find a justification for attacking Iraq both before 9/11 and immediately after 9/11.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/oneill_charges_040113.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

The popular spin on the administration's failure to uncover any evidence of weapons of mass destruction since our invasion has popularly been spun by the major media outlets as has been that the Bush didn't intentionally mislead the American people about the existence or non-existence of these weapons, but that he and his administration were themselves mislead by faulty intelligence. Passing the buck to the CIA would be awfully convenient for Bush, but despite their contentions and the corporate media's on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, there is a strong amount of evidence showing that the Bush administration did knowingly decieve the American people. For example, in his State of the Union Address, Bush stated "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." However, his administration had known for months that this document upon which the veracity of this statement was dependant was forged. http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79455&page=3

Dick Cheney, on March 16, 2003, on Meet the Press stated "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." But the IAEA had already reported days earlier that there was NO credible evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/al_tubes.html
These are just a couple of examples where the Bush administration made false or seriously misleading statements about weapons of mass destruction in order to support its case for invasion. The following article provides a more in depth examination of the issue.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=6154

Add to all of this the fact that Scott Ritter, a former UN inspector, presented credible facts to back up his assertion that the weapons in Iraq had been destroyed, and Colin Powell's statement in February of 2001 that the weapons had been destroyed, and you begin to see that this administration wasn't mislead by intelligence. In my opinion, they delibereratley misled the American people in order to help out their corporate friends like Halliburton, and Bechtel, who were awarded no bid contracts. They had the means (The power of the Presidency of the United States), the motive (Dick Cheney is still recieving compensation from Halliburton), and the opportunity (9-11 allowed the Bush administration to play on the fears of the American people).

A federal grand jury in Houston Texas is investigating whether Halliburton violated U.S. law by doing business with Iran, a state sponser of terrorism that does actually possess weapons of mass destruction. Halliburton set up a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to do business with Iran, but this subsidiary apparently had no employees. It appears that this subsidiary Cayman was in fact merely a shell corporation used by its parent, Halliburton, to conduct business with Iran in contravention of U.S. law prohibiting such business dealings.

To read more about this story, visit this website: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml

Kerry correctly pointed out in the recent presidential debate that Bush had an opportunity to capture Bin Laden in the mountains around Tora Bora in Afghanistan, and he blew that opportunity. Althouth this fact hasn't been reported as widely as it should have been, it has recieved some coverage. But perhaps the most underreported failure of the Bush administration is his failure to capture terrorist Abu Muhab al-Zarqawi when he had a chance in 2002. Once again it appears that Bush ignored the advice of military experts in favor of neo-conservative idealogues who were afraid that going after Zarqawi would undermine their plan to invade Iraq.

To learn more, read this story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

Bush has a miserable record on the environment. One of his first acts was to reverse a campaign pledge to curb CO2 emissions in response to lobbyists from the coal industry. [Link #1] The Bush administration has relaxed EPA standards under the Clean Air Act. Under the new Bush rules, older power plants will be able to expand their operations without installing new anti-pollution technology. And the Bush administration has shifted the burden of cleaning up toxic waste sites from polluters to taxpayers. [See Link #3]

Unfortunately, the above paragraph barely scratches the surface of Bush's pathetic record on the environment. [For more information on Bush's pathetic record on the Environment, see link #4 & 5 below]

Link #1: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/bush010313.html
Link #2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A34334-2003Aug22&notFound=true
Link #3: http://democrats.senate.gov/~dpc/pubs/107-2-99.html
Link #4: http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/
Link #5: http://sierraclub.com/

When Bush entered the White House, this nation had record surpluses, and we were on the way to paying off our national debt by 2013. [See link #1] Now, thanks to W's tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires we have record deficits and a skyrocketing national debt. [See link #2] However, contrary to the White House's spin, this policy of trickle down economics has resulted in the average American having to pay more in taxes due to the fact that state and local government's have had to raise taxes. [See link #3] As a result of Bush's "leave no billionaire behind" tax policy, the average American has had less money to spend, supressing consumer demand, which is the engine that drives our economy. Consequently, Bush will be the first President since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net job loss. Bush's reckless path of fiscal irresponsibility has prompted 10 Nobel economists to endorse Senator John Kerry in the upcoming Presidential election. [See link #4 ]

Link #1: http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/05/01/clinton.debt/
Link #2: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/26/budget.deficits.ap/
Link #3: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_wasik&sid=aUfkWACqky5c
Link #4: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5818277/

Prior to taking office, the Clinton administration made it known to the Bush administration that Osama Bin Laden and his global terrorist network, al-Qaida, would be the greatest threat posed to the United States during his administration. [See link #1] Although Bill Clinton, in retrospect, did not perhaps do all that he could have done to fight global terrorism, he did at least take the issue seriously by holding cabinet level meetings to discuss the threats posed by these global terrorists on an almost daily basis. Such meetings enabled Clinton to thwart a attack planned in Los Angeles International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada, driving a car full of explosives. In contrast, the Bush administration didn't have a cabinet level meeting on the subject until one week prior to 9/11. [See Link #'s 2 & 3] Unfortunately, it was already too late, and we were unable to prevent the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Link #1: http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,600843,00.html
Link #2: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/politics/23CLAR.html?ex=1097035200&en=0d05a810e2aedf99&ei=5070
Link #3: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

For an in depth analysis of exactly how President Bush failed to protect us prior to September 11th, read Richard Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."