Left News and Views

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

So the saying goes and it appears the White House press corps finally found their cojones and let it be known that they won’t be fooled twice.

At a news conference yesterday following the release of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003, President Bush looked – and acted – like a little boy caught in a lie and trying to argue his way out of it.

The sad truth is that all his lies leading up to and through several years of the Iraqi war were sucked up by the press corps and then disseminated to the public with little or no fact checking. And, contrary to the conventional wisdom, not everyone believed the lies.

There was ample evidence that war was unnecessary and thousands of us protested the buildup to the war. I took the photo of my wife, step-daughter and grandchildren at a peace vigil held months before the war began.

Bush once again got the world’s attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. Now we know that his stark warnings came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

At his press conference yesterday, Bush said the director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, came to him in August to say there was new information to be processed, but didn’t tell him what it was – only that it would take some time to check it out.

Between August and the release of the NIE report, Bush continued to ratchet up his rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran and its nuclear ambitions, linking their goals to a potential World War III at an October press conference.

Several reporters pressed Bush, openly asking how he could expect the American public to accept such an incredulous explanation. One was left with the impression that no one in the room believed anything Bush said. Indeed, his explanations not only lacked credibility but strained logic beyond the breaking point.

According to the Toronto Star, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee asked, “Are you telling me a president who’s briefed every single morning, who’s fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government is they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ‘03?”

“That’s not believable. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”

According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters, “We’ve heard the president before, in his build-up to go to war in Iraq, try to lay the same foundation for going to war in Iran. We’ve heard it … and the sixth year is a daily reminder of us that that’s the case.”

Reid charged that the president knew Iran halted its nuclear weapons program months ago even while he warned that the international community must prevent Iran from having the know-how to make a nuclear weapon and avoid “World War III.”

“There is absolutely no question that there should be oversight on this issue,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) in the same Hill report. McDermott has for years been trying to push legislation that would ensure congressional authorization for any military action with Iran.

President Bush’s “credibility is absolutely zero,” McDermott said. “We are dealing with a president who has no shame. Anyone who can turn down 10 million children [for health insurance] is not going to be turned off by a report,” he added.