MoveOn.org and Win Without War Censure Ad: Documentation

WE KNOW that long before September 11th[1], indeed from its first days, the Bush Administration was planning for war with Iraq and the subsequent occupation of the country.

That decision having been made, the president ran a campaign of misinformation, of cherry-picking[2] and doctoring intelligence, of hype and hysteria that led America into an unnecessary war.

For all these reasons, Congress must censure George Bush. Ignoring reports from inspectors in the field[3], overriding objections from our allies[4], overruling the dissenting views of his own intelligence agencies[5], George Bush relentlessly led us into a war that has cost 500 American lives[6], left 3,000 seriously injured [7], and wasted tens of billions of dollars.[8]

For all these reasons, Congress must censure George Bush. Before the war, the president was repeatedly told there was no definitive evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.[9] He knew Iraq was not a nuclear threat.[10] He knew there was no Iraq connection to 9/11.[11] Iraq posed no imminent danger to the United States.[12] There was no case for a pre-emptive war.

There must be consequences when a president misleads the American people, and the Congress, with such disastrous results. An independent commission can deal with failures at the intelligence agencies. Congress should deal with the failures at the White House. Censure the president.

[1] Former Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill, CNN, 1/14/04

[2] Statement of top State Department intelligence officer Greg Thielmann, PBS, 10/9/03

[3] "Blix Says No Smoking Guns Found In Iraq," AP, 1/9/03 and "Blix: No Weapons of Mass Destruction Found," AP, 2/14/03

[4] "Why Bush Can't Muster an Iraq Coalition," Time, 3/7/03

[5] "Intelligence On Iraq Part II: Rising Alarm", Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1/31/04

[6] "U.S. Coalitions & Casualties," CNN, 2/5/04

[7] Compilation of Statistics from Centcom and DoD Releases, Lunaville.org, 2/5/04

[8] "$166 Billion and Counting," San Jose Mercury News, 3/15/03

[9] "The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty," The New Republic, 6/30/03 and Defense Intelligence Agency Report, 6/13/03

[10] IAEA Report, 10/8/98 and "Experts question key Iraq nuke evidence," UPI, 9/19/02 and "Bush Aides Disclose Warnings from CIA," Washington Post, 7/23/03

[11] "Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda," LA Times, 11/4/02 and "Bush: No Link to 9/11 Found," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/18/03 and "No one who has seen the intelligence says it proves Saddam had a role in 9/11," CBS News, 10/1/02

[12] "CIA's Tenet: Analysts Never Claimed Imminent Threat," AP, 2/5/04