From the White House transcript of today’s press briefing in the East Room:
Q Thank you, sir. On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?
PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. … Cont. below:
But all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. As it happened, we weren’t able to do that because — as I think was very clear — there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I — you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I’m not sure who “they dropped it out” is, but — I’m not suggesting that you all dropped it out there. (Laughter.) And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There’s nothing farther from the truth.
My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations — or I went to the United Nations. And so it’s — look, both us of didn’t want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It’s the last option. The consequences of committing the military are — are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the President is to try to comfort families who’ve lost a loved one in combat. It’s the last option that the President must have — and it’s the last option I know my friend had, as well.
And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a — put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
Who is the Steve who asked the question?
Could “Steve” be an American journalist/reporter? woo hoo
A strange phenomenon is occurring in national American papers, with many editors beginning to condemn the war in Iraq, when previously many of them “accepted” it. Though the issue of the U.S. withdrawing has not been brought up by those in the media, the fact that they were lied to in the run up to the war has been rearing its ugly head – that is for President Bush.
[…]
What a load of crap, though that’s nothing new out of these two.
What does that have to do with anything? If (by which I mean “When”) the intelligence was being fixed, it would obviously have to have been done BEFORE taking said intelligence to the UN. Do these people even know how ridiculous the nonsense that comes out of their mouths sounds?
And what is he talking about here? Was not the Iraqi government complying with Hans Blix’s inspection teams? They couldn’t account for materials they said they had destroyed but that hardly means they weren’t in compliance.
I hope this bald-faced lie was followed up upon. How do you kick weapons inspectors out so you can start bombing and say that you tried to avoid conflict?
Characterizations? How about reading the damn thing? Everyone on the internet can read it so he immediately calls it “characterizations” (ie, don’t believe your lying eyes).
Honestly – and not that I put any credence in them in general – but I’d like to see he and Blair repeat such untruths under a lie detector test (or better yet, under oath). I sincerely doubt they ever had one conversation about how to avoid war.
The LAST option, huh? What were the other options they used up before committing to their last option, because diplomacy certainly wasn’t one of them.
The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that such a supposed Christian – if there is a God – will be spending eternity in hell for such heinous lies.
I read Bush’s comments very carefully, and I really think that he believes he is telling the truth. My reasoning:
The objective of Bushco was not to “go to war,” per se, but rather to remove Saddam from power. They tried saber-rattling for six months to a year. If Saddam had chickened out – bingo, no war. Hence the conversations about “how to remove Saddam peacefully.”
What Blair and Bush spouted was, of course, a completely vacuous attempt to avoid the question. And the memo, while it raises questions, is fairly easily ducked because it wades into the murky water of subjective perceptions. More damning are the reports of the fact that the USAF and RAF were already engaging in a full blown air war against Iraq, trying to either provoke a response and/or soften up their defenses, before Congress abdicated or the UN debate in the fall of 2002.
But you have to adjust the punctuation in order to see it:
There’s nothing farther from the truth: My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do.
He was merely mistranscribed.
LIARS! L…I…A…R…S! Liar liar pants of fire!
I heard that clip on AAR. I immediately felt enraged.
Do you think Bush actually believes his lies? Do you think he thinks we do?
will be a lot better off without bushco, too.
Bush is now in big, big trouble. DSM is getting out into MSM fast, and this Pr. Conf. will just push it out faster.
In any case, his response that he was discussing peace with Blair is so flagrantly at odds with DSM that he has just put his foot in a bear-trap. There is no way any longer left open to him to wiggle out of the DSM issue by declaring that the document is open to interpretation; that it is only a partial record of the meeting; that intel was not fabricated (that’s not what DSM says, but the wingers have been trying to sell the media that idea); that everybody thought the WMDs were there (another talking point thus far); or that Bush did indeed work through the UN (proves nothing of course, but it has been one of the favorite talking points in the last two days–see the MSNBC Connected debate on 6/6).
Because there is absolutely nothing in DSM that shows Bush talking to Blair about trying to find a peaceful solution. Quite the opposite. He’d already instigated “spikes of activity” in Iraq. War plans were being developed. The Brits say he thinks war is inevitable, and that they will have to work to persuade the Bush administration to go the UN route.
So now we are going to have a Liar Liar Pants On Fire public debate about DSM. Good.
What I’d like to see is any one of the above posters get a day pass to a bush press conference…and welcome again to all the new posters.
As for bushblair answers it was more of the same old gobbeldy-gook that passes for their idea of an open and honest answer.
Yeah I would have liked someone to follow up with the question as to why bush and blair started bombing the shit out of Iraq right after bushco took office. How can that in any way be construed as being against war..