Bush Lied for Dummies

A very good single-source treatment of the recent "Bush Lied!!!!!" foolishness:

Monk

From: Damnum Absque Injuria

July 15, 2003

BushLied (TM) for Dummies

Last night, while watching a discussion on Hannity and Colmes over the "Bush Lied" meme, Mrs. Xrlq asked me what all the fuss was all about. After explaning the basics to her, it occurred to me that many other people might have been wondering the same thing, but were afraid to ask. Here it is, in a nutshell:

Shortly before President Bush's State of the Union address, the British government learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

President Bush, in his State of the Union address, uttered the infamous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA signed off on the speech, noting that the British government had indeed learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

British intelligence still stands by its findings.

The CIA has subsequently backed off from its position, apparently on account of some new intel showing that the average Democrat is too stupid or lazy to distinguish a statement prefaced by "the British government has learned that ..." from one prefaced by "the CIA has independently confirmed that ..."

So there you have it. Seriously. Of course there are other details to thes story, but that's all they are, details, and for the most part, distracting ones to boot. Here are a couple of the more common canards:

What about those forged documents purporting to implicate Niger? Well, what about them? The Brits didn't rely on them, and neither did Bush. He said Saddam attempted to buy the stuff from Africa, not from Niger, and certainly not from "knee-ZHAIR," as Bush's more pretentious critics like to pronounce it.

"If the CIA couldn't confirm it, Bush shouldn't have said it." Well, that's a question on which reasonable minds will have to differ. If we have any real reason to think American intelligence is that much more reliable than British intelligence, then I suppose it might not be such a good idea to quote British intel in any context. But I do not believe that to be teh case, and in any event, Bush's 16-word "lie" made it very clear that he was relying on the findings of the British government, not on anything the CIA had confirmed independently. If you're mad that the CIA didn't have an opportunity to review the intel in question, that anger should properly be directed at France (hat tip: Howard Veit, via Daily Pundit), not at the Bush Administration.

"Wait a minute! Bush said outright that 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa!' He didn't qualify that by saying the Brits had learned that, blah blah blah..." This is because you are watching a Democrat commercial featuring a dowdified version of the statement. Try watching the original speech instead.