The most egregious example of the Bush Administration deliberately lying to the American people about the danger posed by Iraq in order to justify an invasion is the "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," clause inserted into the 2003 State of the Union Address. How many Americans were shaken off the fence by the claim that Saddam might be developing nuclear weapons? We'll never know, but I'm guessing that the president of the United States declaring that a nuclear threat was imminent was profoundly affecting for most people. When Bush made this statement, we were already close to war, the AUMF had already passed, and the heavy use of the term "WMD" had already blurred distinctions between nuclear, biological, and other armaments, as it was meant to. In the lead up to the invasion in March 2003, this is the moment I remember the most. It may be the bias of hindsight, who knows. But a new report from Henry Waxman and the House Committee on Government Oversight reveals just how deliberately fabricated the claim was (as predicted by Jeff Lomanaco on TAPPED last year).
The village consensus was that the CIA offered bad intelligence. But that's not what happened. The CIA and other administration officials tried desperately to get the reference to uranium removed at least twice and succeeded. But the idea that the CIA was at fault was comfortable for everyone; it helped the press cover their failures, it let congress off the hook, it exonerated the Bush Administration, and it allowed Americans to avoid coming to terms with the truth that the President of the United States and his administration had knowingly manipulated the country to war. In the meantime, administration officials responsible for this fabrication and attempting to obfuscate it will move on to comfortable post-administration careers while the Obama Administration figures out how to withdraw American troops who have been at war for almost six years because of this administration's flagrant disregard for its own responsibilities. Some like Michael Gerson and Alberto Gonzales already have.
--A. Serwer
