Our corporate-controlled (Orwellian) mass media

CBS Falsifies Iraq War History

by Robert Parry

  In a world of objective reality, a reporter would simply say that the United States launched an unprovoked invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 under the false pretense that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and did this even after UN inspectors, completely unopposed by Saddam, had failed to find any WMD.

On Dec. 7, 2002, Iraq even sent to the United Nations a 12,000-page declaration explaining how its WMD stockpiles had been eliminated.  Plus, in the fall 2002, Hussein's government allowed teams of U.N. inspectors into Iraq and gave them free rein to examine any site of their choosing.

Those inspections only ended in March 2003 when President George W. Bush decided to press ahead with war -- despite the U.N. Security Council's refusal to authorize the invasion, and despite its desire to give the U.N. inspectors time to finish their work.

But none of this reality is part of the Orwellian history that Americans are supposed to believe.  The officially sanctioned and Orwellian U.S. account, as embraced by Bush in speech after speech (and now embraced by Mitt Romney as well), is that Saddam Hussein "chose war" by defying the U.N. over the WMD issue.

In line with Bush's version of history, "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley asked FBI interrogator George Piro why Hussein kept pretending that he had WMD even as U.S. troops massed on Iraq's borders, when a simple announcement that the WMD was gone would have prevented the war.

"For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking," Pelley said in introducing the segment on the interrogation of Hussein about his WMD stockpiles.  "Why did he choose war with the United States?"

Pelly never mentions the fact that Hussein's government did in fact disclose that it had eliminated its WMD.  Instead Pelley presses Piro on the irrelevant question of why Hussein was hiding the fact that he had no WMD.

In asking such a question, Pelley and other prominent U.S. news correspondents diligently dodge the well-established facts of the run-up to war and loyally follow the made-up story first presented by Bush four months after he forced the U.N. inspectors out, when he began claiming that Hussein had never let them in. 

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/012808.html

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Pointing out some of the same things, Thom Hartmann gave the following (paraphrased here) report during a recent radio broadcast:

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 required the vote of the Security Council in order for the invasion of Iraq to begin.  That vote never took place.  Therefore, the invasion of Iraq was illegal.  However, six months after the invasion, the Security Council passed another resolution, at the urging of the United States, essentially forgiving the United States for breaking international law by invading Iraq -- for we had indeed violated resolution 1441.  All this is a matter of public record. 

Furthermore, the Senate resolution that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were condemned for voting to support, clearly stated that the only way Bush could use force against Iraq is if he, Bush, certified in writing to the Senate, within 60 days of commencement of hostilities, that there was CLEAR EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to the events of 9/11.  And in fact, about 40 or 50 days after the invasion, George Bush did write a letter to the Senate saying that "I certify and I swear that Saddam Hussein was involved in the events of 9/11."  A copy of this letter is available at www.whitehouse.gov

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