No, George W. Bush Did Not Lie Us Into War with Iraq

HotAir.com:

There is no small amount of irony in this argument coming up now. The Department of Defense and the intelligence community have active investigations looking into whether CENTCOM and other analysts have been cooking intelligence to make our anti-ISIS strategy look more successful than it truly is — and bury the threat of ISIS until it was too late. Warnings about cooked intel analyses went all the way to James Clapper, who apparently didn’t do much to correct the issue at the time. 

However, several investigations have made clear that this was not the case with Iraq. Bush didn’t lie; he relied on bad intelligence amplified by the heightened concern after 9/11. The Saddam-WMD intel preceded Bush’s term in office, and Democrats before and after 9/11 offered the same warnings about Saddam’s intentions and his preparations. And while WMD was not found in bulk quantities, some undeclared chemical weapons actually were found by US forces after the invasion, as well as records that made clear that Saddam would reconstitute his WMD capabilities after the US and UK finally left. 

On top of that, Saddam refused to comply with the terms of the 1991 cease-fire and 17 UN resolutions demanding his cooperation. 

All of this has been known for a decade. Only conspiracy theorists and manipulative demagogues continue to claim that “Bush lied us into war in Iraq.” Consider it a self-identifying behavior and choose accordingly.

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