I've recently come upon an amazing document which was issued by the G.W. Bush White House sometime in early 2003, just before the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was sent to me by a friend in Europe. Actually, he just quoted part of the text, and I asked him for the source. He then sent me a fund drive notice from the American anti-Neocon and anti-Establishment website called TruthOut. Here it is, my emphasis in red:

 

Take a trip with me on the wayback machine, back to February of 2003. George W. Bush stood before the world and proclaimed that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile biological weapons labs and uranium from Niger for use in a "robust" nuclear weapons programs, and that Iraq enjoyed connections to al Qaeda that led directly to the attacks of September 11.

It was a stinking bag of rancid lies, and here at Truthout, we called them on it, loudly and at length, when it happened.

Flash-forward to the UK Telegraph headline from late last week: "ISIS Jihadists 'Seize Saddam Hussein's Chemical Weapons Stockpile.'" Upon reading this headline, my brain slithered out of my ear, crawled into the bathroom, and wept piteously with its pre-frontal lobe pressed into the cold porcelain truth of the toilet bowl… Because we've been here before, haven't we?

There were no chemical weapons for the ISIS fighters to seize; what they did seize, however, was an old factory filled with useless crap. Once again, we face the "news" media's core credo: Never let the facts get in the way of a hot headline, or a war that will boost readership.

Not Truthout. Not ever. Not one time, and not on our watch. The unfolding situation in Iraq and Syria is dense and complicated and dangerous, but you're not going to get the truth of it from your television, or from the hallowed halls of shops like The New York Times, which gifted us the lies of Judith Miller that helped land us in this bloodbath in the first place.

You will get the truth from us, come Hell or high water, period. End of file. We need your help to keep telling it. Can you support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation of any amount today?

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With some further checking I found out that the quotes attributed to Bush came from a White House website posting which was copied verbatim and used subsequently by a college professor in Minnesota in a course he was teaching about contemporary moral issues. It is the professor's document that is duplicated below. You will find a link at the bottom of it to the archived White House original.

There is no question that the archived White House website is genuine, because internal links to other parts of it work, but curiously the document in question has been misdated as April 18th, 2003. This would be impossible because Baghdad fell to American forces on April 9th, and the pre-war document obviously had to be issued sometime prior to March 19th, 2003 which is the date the President announced the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The mistake in dating is likely a mechanical error.

In any event, here to me is the amazing part. There is not a single sentence of the White House document which is true. Everything in it is either a mistake, a breezy falsehood or an outright lie. Iraq had no WMD, no nuclear weapons program, and no chemical or biological weapons. I am wondering if this constitutes some kind of world record for unmitigated White House deception. It may. We are living in very strange times.

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Disarm Saddam Hussein

The gravest danger we face in the war on terror is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

• Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm all weapons of mass destruction.

• For 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement.

• Three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam his final chance to disarm. He has shown his utter contempt for the U.N.

• The U.N. and U.S. intelligence sources have known for some time that Saddam Hussein has materials to produce chemical and biological weapons, but he has not accounted for them:

      § 26,000 liters of anthrax—enough to kill several million people

      § 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin

      § 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents

      § Almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents

• From three Iraqi defectors, we know that Iraq in the late 1990s had several mobile biological weapons labs. But he has not disclosed them.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on methods of enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb. He recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, according to the British Government. He has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons, according to our intellig

ence sources. Yet he has not credibly explained these activities.

• Thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN inspectors.

• Iraqi officials accompany all inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

• Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the U.N.

• Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with the UN be killed, along with their families.

• Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including al-Qaida members. He could provide hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

• The United States will ask the UN Security Council to convene next week to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. We will consult. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will act for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/response/disarm.html  

(now archived:

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/disarm.html)