Conscientious Dishonesty: the Invention of Catastrophe
To accomplish this the Bush Administration undertook perhaps the most brilliant campaign of fear mongering and propaganda in American history. It was launched in the bombast of the
President's 2002 State of the Union speech.
After noting the successful defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and introducing Mr. Hamid Karzai seated in the gallery, Mr. Bush made his case for expanding the Global War on Terror.
"As we gather tonight," the President began, "our nation is at war....and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers."
For 48 minutes the President described the apocalyptic threats and his resolve to confront and repel them. His language was the raw material of nightmares:
States like these [Iraq, Iran, and North Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.
...Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. We can't stop short. If we stop now -- leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked -- our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America...to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom's fight.
The threat was large and diffuse, but Mr. Bush made clear his foremost target:
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children.
This message, this imagery, and the fear it engendered needed to be broadcast, assimilated, and normalized to persuade the nation and eventually the Congress of the need to invade Iraq.
President Bush appointed a "White House Iraq Group" to undertake the task. It consisted of twelve trusted and powerful people in his Administration, its central core of political operatives and media professionals:
Andrew Card, Chief of Staff for President Bush
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