For eleven months the lies were spontaneous, random, and few: no single month displayed more than 20 falsehoods. But after the White House Iraq Group was formed the lies were deliberately constructed, targeted, and numerous, and in September of 2002 the untruths tripled to more than 60.
Those 60 were meant to provide background support for two events in September. On the 17th President Bush signed the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America." This was the capstone triumph of the Project for the New American Century: their neoconservative agenda of world dominion and the doctrine of pre-emptive war were now formal U.S. policy. Two days later the Administration submitted a draft resolution to implement the policy: it asked for Congressional authority to attack Iraq.
President Bush delivered a nationally televised speech on October 7. It bore the watermark of the White House Iraq Group, and it contained its share of false information.(4)(5)
"Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.
The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraq regime's own actions, its history of aggression and
its drive toward an arsenal of terror.
...On September 11, 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved now, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.
...Members of Congress of both political parties and members of the United Nations Security Council agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and gases and atomic weapons.
...Saddam is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction....If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today--and we do--does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?
If the speech was meant to pressure the Congress to sign off on the Iraq war resolution it succeeded almost immediately. On October 16, the President signed P.L. 107-243, "Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq."
The law itself contained the White House Iraq Group's false narrative:
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;
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