Press Release

Win Without War
1320 18th Street, NW, Fifth Floor
Washington, DC 20036

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, November 11, 2005

CONTACT: Jessica Smith or Trevor FitzGibbon, Fenton Communications (202) 822-5200

Facts Contradict President’s Words in
Veterans Day Speech
Politically Weak, President Goes On Attack

Statement by Former Congressman and National Director of Win Without War Tom Andrews:

President Bush’s use of today’s Veterans Day speech to attack war critics for “re-writing the history” of events that led to the invasion of Iraq is itself revisionist and a demonstration of just how weak the administration has become politically in light of growing public opposition to the war, the indictment of a senior aide and mistrust of the President by the American people.

The President’s Iraq policy is failing. According to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 57% of Americans believe Bush deliberately misled people to make the case for war, while 58% are less confident the war will come to a successful conclusion.

IIt is ironic that in an attempt to dig himself out of a hole, the President continues to distort, deceive, and accuse his critics of engaging in a “revision of history.” As the facts illustrate, the only revision of history lies at the feet of the President.

Below is a summary of the false claims made by the President about Iraq and the threat it posed to the American people in the run-up to the invasion and evidence that he knew those claims to be false.

The most damning fact of all, however, is that the President’s Iraq policy continues to fuel international terrorism and strengthen the Iraq insurgency while it isolates the United States and makes our citizens less safe. A recent poll of the Iraqi people found that 82% want US forces to leave Iraq and nearly half believe that insurgent attacks against our military forces are justified. Terrorist attacks around the world have more than tripled since the administration launched its so-called “war on terror.”

The truth is that the President manipulated and distorted the facts about Iraq and the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. He deceived, and continues to deceive, the American public. He claimed today that an independent commission found no evidence of administration manipulation of intelligence. In fact, an independent study of the administration’s public statements in advance of the war, released in January of 2004, found that the administration “systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile program.” The Silverman Robb Commission did not address the administration’s false and misleading public claims to justify the invasion of Iraq despite evidence that the claims had no basis in fact.

The President is justified in his concern about his credibility and growing public opposition to his Iraq policy. Recent polls not only show a steady decline in support for the war in Iraq but that six in ten Americans do not believe that the President has been honest with the American people.

The President knew that the claims he made were false at the time he made them.

CLAIM: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” President Bush, March 17, 2003 (from official White House transcript).

TRUTH: “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq used the period since 1998 to reconstitute its Weapons of Mass Destruction programs.” CIA report, February 2003

CLAIM: “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program … The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” President Bush, State of the Union Address, January 2003.

TRUTH: “The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.” Washington Post, July 23, 2003

CLAIM: “Our intelligence sources tell us that he (Saddam) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” President Bush, State of Union Address, January 28, 2003.

TRUTH: “INR (US State Dept Bureau of Intelligence and Research) is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors…the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq's nuclear weapon program.” National Intelligence Estimate, October 2002

CLAIM: “I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied – finally denied access, a report came out of the IAEA – that they were six months away from developing a nuclear weapon. I don’t know how much more evidence we need.” President Bush, September 6, 2002

TRUTH: According to the IAEA, no such report exists.

CLAIM: “In 1995 … the head of Iraq’s military industries [Hussein Kamal] defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents.” President Bush October 7, 2002

TRUTH: The transcript of Kamel’s 1995 debriefing by the inspectors and the IAEA indicates he said the opposite. After the Gulf War, he told the UN, “Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.”

CLAIM: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. And we’ll find more as we go along. But for now, those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”

TRUTH: “Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile program.” “WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004

CLAIM: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.” President Bush, Cincinnati, 2002

TRUTH: According to Defense Intelligence Agency documents, the source of the statements the Bush administration used as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons was a known fabricator.

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