Bush War Lies #5

"Immigrants detained in the wake of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks were kept in 'unduly harsh' conditions, prevented from seeing their lawyers and abused mentall and physically" -- San Jose Mercury News

Dramatic claims by President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top officials that Iraq was hiding vast stocks of banned weapons so far have proved to be without foundation ... CIA chief George Tenet resisted insistent pressure from some quarters -- particularly the Pentagon -- to shape intelligence estimates on Iraq to provide backing for the war ... Pentagon civilians, supported by Vice President Cheney's office and some officials on the National Security Council staff, were pushing more alarmist views. -- San Jose Mercury News

When all three major US newsweeklies - Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report - run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal. -- Asia Times

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) formally concluded that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons" in September 2002, just as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was telling Congress that the Baghdad "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas ... At one point during the rehearsal [for the UN presentation], the normally mild-mannered Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bullshit." -- US News and World Report