Customer Reviews

The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I am a teacher. I am committed to honesty and free speech and an even-handed discussion of controversy. I am committed to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In short, I am committed to education.

Unfortunately, in times of national crisis, teaching about current issues can be both difficult and uncomfortable. For teachers and students, for anyone engaged in an ongoing discussion of current American policies in Iraq, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry is an essential source.

Despite the passage of more than two years, American educators teach under the growing shadow of 9/11, and in that shadow truth can be uncomfortable to tell. Repeatedly, this Administration, by having used transparently false justifications for war, has put all social studies teachers in a delicate situation. Over and over the truth of the matter stares us in the face daring us to tell it like it is.

But, no matter how an individual teacher handles questions about Bush's reasons for war it is likely he or she will be challenged. So it is essential that we know what we are talking about. Certainly we have an obligation to read from a variety of sources, to investigate the facts, and to state them as clearly as we can. That is where this book can help. The authors, for example, write insightfully that, "one of the hallmarks of the long-running Iraq disinformation campaign led by the White House is to repeat things that aren't true until a great many people believe they are." And then in chapter after chapter they demonstrate how this technique was used over and over and over.

As any good teacher knows, in the classroom, respect for evidence remains paramount, but the evidence, as made perfectly clear in this book, is overwhelmingly against this administration's pre-war justifications. Not sure that Hussein was deliberately linked, by Bush and company, to 9/11? You will be. Not sure that Bush wasn't just misled by "faulty intelligence?" You will be. Might you still be tempted to think that the Bush administration sincerely considered Iraq as the right place to establish a "democratic model" in the Middle East? Finish this book and you will abandon that bit of folklore too.

On page after page the evidence is overwhelming. There were no Iraqi nukes, there was no fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ready to spray the enemy with powerful chemicals, there was no continuing relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and, most importantly, there was no immediate danger from Weapons of Mass Destruction. In fact, usable Iraqi WMDs, by the time war began, simply did not exist.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator with a record of abuse that stretches back to his first day in office. Iraq, under Hussein, unquestionably had nuclear ambitions. Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons both before and after the first Gulf War and he repeatedly lied about this to anyone who would listen, especially to the various inspectors assigned to investigate. All of that is in this book, but, ultimately, Saddam's lies were unsuccessful and a great many of the banned weapons were discovered and destroyed during the pre-1998 inspections. That is in the book too.

Importantly, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq places the war into the larger context of American Foreign Policy. You will understand how President Bush radically changed the rules of American military engagement with the release of his national security strategy on September 17, 2002. You will understand that with this new strategy Bush brought an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that had characterized United States foreign policy for more than half a century.

Of course, there are other obstacles to effectively teaching about an ongoing war and there are other books to read, but this is a fine start. My only criticism is that there was not time or money to create an extensive index. But that is a minor complaint.

In his carefully worded speech delivered on August 7, 2003 at New York University, former Vice President Al Gore clearly outlined the challenge we all face in the classroom: "...it is no longer possible to avoid the conclusion that what the country is dealing with in the Bush Presidency is...a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty."

Buy more than one copy.

After reading The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, I was left baffled as to how the people in the most powerful country in the world could fall for such blatant lies. I found it very interesting how the Bush administration makes speeches leaving so much room for interpretation, to ultimately save themselves later when questioned. In the first section of this book called Bait and Switch, it describes how the Bush administration employed five key fake "facts" into the public's mind, so that when it came time to spend billions of dollars and risk thousands of lives, the public would support it. These five lies guides this book towards proving its point: Every major assertion that our government put forward to justify the conquest of Iraq has proved false. Christopher Scheer achieved his goal in convincing me of the ludicrousness of the situation in Iraq. His evidence was mostly primary sources, and therefore convincing. Speeches, quotes, and documents are utilized which make his argument very strong. The only times I got lost in this novel is when other liberally biased books are quoted without stated proof in this novel backing up their arguments.

Still, this book places the war into the larger context of American Foreign Policy. It explains to the reader how President Bush radically shifted the rules of American military activity with the release of his national security strategy on September 17, 2002. This book also elaborates on how with this new security strategy Bush was able to bring an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that characterized United States foreign policy for more than half a century. Christopher Scheer along with the other authors state in this novel that, "One of the hallmarks of the long-running Iraq disinformation campaign led by the White House is to repeat things that aren't true until a great many people believe they are." (41). They drill this concept into the reader, until there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that this is factual.

The first lie described is that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and/or Al Qaeda. Bush was able to make the public believe this by repeatedly relating the tragedy of 9/11, terrorism, Iraq, and Saddam Hussein all in the same sentence as frequent as possible. I was blown away when this book quotes Colin Powell discussing an argument against the war with Iraq in 9/11 by saying they had nothing to do with it. He states, "Don't go with the Iraq option right away, or we'll lose the coalition we've been signing up. "They'll view it as bait and switch-it's not what they signed up to do.' If we weren't going after Iraq before September 11 why would we be going after then now when the current outrage is not directed at Iraq. Keep the Iraq options open if you get the linkages, maybe Syria, Iran, but I doubt you'll get the linkages." (41). It continues in proving how they never got the linkages and how instead of revealing the fakeness of their argument, they instead use words saying "this could be true," or an "educated guess."

This book does an impeccable job explaining how the power of words can distort a country's belief and how a government can even create a false war. In another passage discussing this same thing, they quote Bush: "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists, Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." (October 7, 2002). Okay, Bush. This could happen, but is it likely? Instead of focusing on the countries that could be a more realistic threat (if there is any), he chose Iraq. After making many speeches discussing how Iraq, Hussain, 9/11, and terrorism are all related, on September 17, 2003 Bush admitted that there was no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11. This book reiterates that there were no Iraqi nuclear weapons, there was no fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ready to spray the enemy with powerful chemicals, there was no continuing relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and no immediate danger from Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is an example of the proof emphasized in the book, both convincing and effective.

The style of this book is also easy to read. While other persuasive novels can be overdone and overly repetitive, this novel is broken down into manageable chapters and possesses comprehensive diction. I recommend this book to everyone who is unsure about the false motives and lack of evidence in the Iraq war, and what Bush has done to our country and foreign policy since he became president.

This book delivers a call for help for a change in administration and simultaneously sends a message of truth to all who read it.

This book provides a strong argument against the Bush Administrations arguments against going to war in Iraq. You can argue that the book is biased but the bottom line is that the facts speak for themselves. To date, the only probable FACTs we've been told about Saddam and Iraq are the ones related to his human rights abuses. This is not really touched on because, what's understood on this case does not need to be discuss. With that said, that book breaks down the following:

Saddam's ties to Al Queda:
There never were any. These allegations were made on dubious intelligence claims that at most, proved that Saddam's officials may have had a meeting with Al Queda operative 10 years ago. Saying that Saddam has Al Queda ties is the equivalent of saying that someone you or I went on a date with 10 years ago is our boyfriend/girlfriend of 10 years. In short, it's a complete distortion of the truth/

Chem.. & Bio Weapons:
We know Saddam had and used these prior to Gulf war I. Why? WE gave him the means to make them. The claims that he still possessed them came from defectors who proved to be less than credible witnesses. The weapons inspectors and CIA reports have all stated the same thing.There's no evidence Saddam still possessed these weapons. Even if he had them prior to 1991 is irrelevant because chem.. & bio weapons only have a shelf life of 2-3 years.

Saddam's Nuclear program:
What existed was dismantled after Gulf War I. Are we seeing a pattern here?

The War would be a cakewalk:
I think it's safe to say most people believed this to be the case. Obviously it hasn't been, largely due to poor planning and other agenda's.

Iraq as a model for Democracy:
The shabbiest and most overused since the WMD and Al Queda claims were proven to be bogus. The issue here is that there are many, many brutal dictatorship's in the word and to think that we would send 100,000 troops to a foreign land to "liberate" a nation is just plain gullible.

If you want a good summary argument about the false pretenses used to launch the Iraq war, this book provides a readable 175 pg argument.

Every American should read two thin books about Iraq: "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq" by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, and "Warrior King: the Case for Impeaching George W. Bush" by John Bonifaz with forward by Congressman John Conyers.

The first book exposes the lies that President Bush and members of his Administration knowingly told during the build-up to the war on Iraq, including the lies that are keeping US troops in Iraq today.

The second book addresses Bush's unconstitutional act of taking the US military to war without a declaration of war by Congress. A number of US soldiers and US Congress Members sued the President in a failed attempt to prevent this war, and this book lays out the case.

Even Republicans are now worried and even the famous "Mr. Freedom Fries" Congressman is jumping on board to withdraw troops from Iraq as it's now clear that like LBJ made a mess with Vietnam, Bush made a mess with Iraq by he and his cronies brainwashing the public with lies. This book isn't a bad start for opening up the dirty rotten truth about the Iraq war. The only people who hate this book appear to be the neocons !

It merely requires time and a little patience to see how a book like this one is prescient. What the authors have identified as Bush's lies justifying the USA invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has now acknowledged as "mistakes":

1. Al Qaeda had terrorist links to Iraq
2. Iraq had chemical and biological weapons
3. Iraq had nuclear weapons
4. The war and the occupation would be easy
5. Iraq is primed to become a model of democracy in the Middle East

Of course, the administration still holds out official hope for the fifth lie, but it is also the kind of hope the USA could have for 20 years even as it continually battles an ever-renewing insurgency of Iraqi patriots who hate the USA. Still, it is evident to the objective observer and from what we now know from the Iraqi people themselves: whatever the Iraqi people want for their government, it is not what the USA offers.

The Bush administration floated a sixth lie when the mendacious nature of the first five became evident. It is now claimed that the USA invaded Iraq for purely humanitarian reasons. Yet Human Rights Watch (HRW) accurately pointed out that though Saddam was no angel, the widespread nature of his abuses ended by the early 1990s, most of them occurring during the 80s when the USA considered him an ally. In fact, HRW argued that Saddam's abuses had declined so much that a persuasive case could not be made for militarily intervening in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. Add to that the fact that approximately 100,000 Iraqi noncombatants have died since the USA invasion, and malnutrition has increased in Iraq since the invasion (at levels in excess of those while Saddam was in power), then it becomes clear that the USA invasion and occupation has been a humanitarian disaster and the USA has lied about this as well.

If the authors decide to print another addition of this work, I urge them to include an analysis of this sixth lie as well. This needs to be settled: the USA has exhausted its excuses for it monstrous acts of barbarity in Iraq.

The Five Biggest Lies was not the first book I've read on George W. Bush and or his misadventure and it probably won't be the last. Obviously, from the title, one can deduct that this is not a book that praises the forty-third president. The book is well written and planned and is generally about what the title describes - the five major fallacies that were given as the rationale for the unprovoked aggression of Iraq. It is basically set forth in an outline style, starting with an introduction, then a chapter on the reasoning and methodology behind the deception. The deceptions themselves follow, with a chapter allocated to each lie, followed by the conclusion.

The chapters outlining the five lies are titled by the lies:
1. Al Qaeda's ties to Iraq.
2. Iraq's Chemical and Biological Weapons
3. Iraq's Nuclear Weapons
4. The War Will Be a `Cakewalk'
5. Iraq as a Democratic Model
6. Conclusion

Al Qaeda's ties to Iraq

The authors methodically expose this deceit pointing to the fact that all of the prewar suppositions regarding an alleged tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had previously been discredited. Yet, as in the pattern of other falsehoods, these lies mysteriously found their way back into the conversations and speeches of administration officials.

Iraq's Chemical and Biological Weapons

Another stretch by the administration that had been debunked previously, even as the administration members continued to talk about Chemical and Biological WMD. They shamelessly continued to use this discounted intelligence as a pretext for invasion. Even though the United States and the UN had Hussein in a box, in control of only a third of his country and was unable to reconstitute chemical and biological programs; the administration pointed to this phantom program as a grave world threat.

Iraq's Nuclear Weapons

This may have been the largest and most damaging of the fabrications. Everything that the administration put forward to justify their mushroom cloud scenario had already been discredited numerous times and in many ways, yet the people in Rumsfeld's personal intelligence gatherers, whose only purpose was to dig up intelligence that would support the administration position, wouldn't let it die. This despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was no evidence of any kind of WMD in Iraq and weapon inspectors had come up empty. Vice President Cheney in no uncertain terms said they were "Flat wrong." Well, the head of IAEA ended up with a Nobel Peace Prize and we ended up with a quagmire.

The War Will be a `Cakewalk'

Here again the administration's leading Hawk, VP Cheney was head cheerleader for invasion by going on TV and saying the war would be a "cakewalk." Others treated the invasion in a cavalier manner as well. The administration planned on reducing troop levels to 30,000 troops within three months.

The authors point out that this may be the only inadvertent lie, with administration officials truly believing their own hyperbole in this case.

Iraq as a Democratic Model

This is, of course, the back up rationale for the invasion of Iraq, but it was the primary policy on a position of expansion and policing, which authors put forth in the conclusion.
The authors don't disagree with the idea of a model democracy in the Middle East but it is generally conceived that if such an event were to occur it would have to be nurtured, not imposed from the end of a gun.

Conclusion

The authors postulate that the invasion of Iraq was the first salvo in a new grandiose, radical foreign policy of deterrence by aggression. In doing this the administration made numerous assumptions, all of which turned out to be fallacious. Instead the results of the invasion had the opposite effect, bogging us down in Iraq, helpless to confront other developing mischief in the globe, ie. Iran and North Korea.

My Thoughts

This book only deals with the lead up to the war and the very beginnings, having being published in October, 2003, yet the authors seem quite prescient, having correctly predicting the present situation in Iraq.

Like the other similar books I have devoured, it is meant to be informative and factual. It is probably directed at the average Bush supporter who seem to shun being confused with facts and therefore would not be caught within a mile of such `dreck.'

Therefore this book and others like it serve as kindling, inflaming the passions of those of us that believe Dubya is, at best, a study in mediocrity. It reinforces our incredulity that this man was re-elected. I don't know about others, but it makes be mad at the voters that voted, with whatever stupid reason in mind, for Bush. I can truthfully say, not a day goes by that I haven't marveled at the fact that this man is our President.

This book is a comprehensive, thorough, and truthful examination of the frighteningly complex web of lies and misrepresentations created by the Bush administration about Iraq. The authors cite countless instances of the president or one of his top cabinet members using pieces of intelligence to support their assertions of Iraqi WMD weeks or even months after such pieces of intelligence had been discredited by the very agencies which submitted them to the White House. There is testimony from former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter that Iraqi chemical weapons, if they existed prior to 1998 (they could not have been created after that date, as weapons inspectors had been present in the country until the US invasion in 2003), would have decomposed into harmless waste on the shelves of Iraqi weapons depots. The level of deciet used by the Bush administration in getting the American public to support the war is, to my knowledge, unprecedented in American politics.

I am not a Bush fan, neither am I a Bush basher. I was with him
until Iraq happened.This book is different from other Bush-bashing books I've read, because it focuses only on one thing:
Iraq. And it only gives 5 reasons why the author feels Bush lied. The most intriguing thing about the book, is that 4 of the 5 reasons the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq, have come to be considered false or weak reasons, by everyone from weapons inspectors, politicians on both sides, and the general public, to our foreign allies covering most of the globe.

I will admit that I was for the war in Iraq until I read this book. There was always a haze of confusion about what was really going on but I couldn't break through it myself. The Five Biggest Lies is more than an attack manual against a political figure, the authors took a stand at a time when NO ONE was challenging the invasion. By collecting information from a variety of credible sources and then printing the book themselves so as to circumvent the publishing industry's cowardice, the Five Biggest Lies leaked just enough of the truth to get people asking questions. They should at least be credited with helping to start the turn in public opinion even if the turn was a long bend that was slow to happen.