Garbage in, garbage out

Published: January 27, 2008 04:39AM

www.registerguard.com/csp/cms...tory.cls

A study documenting that President Bush and his top aides made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion has to rank as one of the least-surprising revelations to enter the public domain since President Clinton admitted to the American people that he had “a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate.”

By now, most of the “Bush Lied, People Died” bumper stickers are going on five years old, and the ones adorning Lane County cars have long since been soaked into illegibility.

Still, it’s helpful to remind everyone who continues to uncritically accept Bush’s explanations for why the United States must not end his trillion-dollar misadventure in Iraq that on this subject, his credibility leaves something to be desired.

The truth squad role in the latest study was played by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity and its affiliate, the Fund for Independence in Journalism. After compiling and analyzing a database of administration statements about Iraq in the two years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the researchers concluded that “President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements … about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

The report said the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

The two main sources of untruths are familiar to anyone who has paid any attention to the divisive war debate: allegations that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and claims that Iraq had clear links to al-Qaeda.

Bush counters all charges that he deliberately misled Congress and the American public with the argument that at the time he and other officials made the untrue statements, the intelligence services of the United States and several other nations, including Britain, believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It’s a fair rebuttal, and if it’s appropriate to forgive members of Congress and the American public for supporting Bush’s decision to go to war because they were acting on bad information, then Bush and his advisers are entitled to the same benefit of the doubt.

Sadly, that still leaves us in a morally indefensible position: The United States invaded another sovereign nation, unprovoked by any aggressive act, and directly caused the deaths of more than 150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians while the conflict systematically destroyed the economy and infrastructure of Iraq.

In the process, the lives of 3,931 American sons and daughters have been sacrificed, and another 29,000 U.S. troops have been wounded, thousands so seriously they will require intensive care for the rest of their lives. Heaven knows how many more will carry the psychological scars of this horrendous, unnecessary war with them to their graves.

Meanwhile, as the nation stands on the precipice of recession, the Iraq war continues to drain $275 million a day from the U.S. treasury.

All because of bad information.

The takeaway point here is agonizingly clear in hindsight: The decision to go to war — the most consequential decision any nation can make — was undertaken hastily and on the basis of both insufficient and inaccurate information.

The American people, manipulated by leaders who played on their fears, failed to demand that every reasonable alternative to war be exhausted. Why? Because they had bad information.

Congress abdicated its constitutional role to act as a check on the actions of the executive branch. Their excuse: Bad information.

Some clamor for retribution through impeachment for the misrepresentations Bush used to stampede the nation into war. But that sidesteps the collective responsibility all Americans share for the actions of their government.

What’s needed is a far more fundamental national soul-searching about the justification for ordering American troops into combat. It is incumbent on the American people to demand more of themselves and their leaders than they have since Sept. 11. The United States can ill afford to ever again unleash the dogs of war based on bad information