Bush lied (about Iraq)? If so, he had a lot of company

Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post's editorial page director, wrote an article, which appeared in today's Houston Chronicle, entitled "Did Bush Lie? Sorry, but it's Just not that Simple." The link is here. The gist of the article is that the recent majority report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which claims that the Bush overstated the reliability of the intelligence regarding Iraq, in fact shows that the administration's claims were generally substantiated by available intelligence. Hiatt notes: "As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent."

The article reminds me of a site that I viewed a couple of years ago (I wish I still had the link) that showed a montage of video clips of Democrat political figures claiming in no-uncertain-terms that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous threat, that he had or was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he could not be allowed to remain in power. The individuals I remember include Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Al Gore, and John Kerry, plus a number of other prominent Democrats whom I cannot now recall. I believe that the Hillary Clinton clip was from 2002.

In short, virtually every major elected official at the time, both Democrat and Republican, proclaimed that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable threat, who possessed or was attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. But somehow, it was only Bush (and perhaps Cheney) who lied. Everybody else just made an honest mistake. Some of these politicians (including Senator Rockefeller) now claim -- falsely -- that they did not have access to the relevant intelligence reports.

Look, everyone relied on the CIA's inaccurate reports that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (he apparently tried to maintain programs that would allow him to produce such weapons in the future). But it's undisputed that he stockpiled roughly 100,000,000 tons of conventional munitions. Think about that: 100,000,000 tons of munitions. Does anybody really think that this guy was not a threat?

I have plenty of issues with the way the war in Iraq has been conducted. And I have plenty of criticisms of the Bush administration on other issues. But "Bush lied, and boys died" just doesn't cut it. Neither, apparently, does the report issued last Thursday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.