(I apologize if you've already seen this study; it's been all over the blogosphere this morning, and I've seen it at least a dozen times.) The Center for Public Integrity has released a study titled "War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War" It's a depressing--and, for those of us who were paying attention at the time, very familiar--tale, but it's a good summary of the Busheviks' mendacity:
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
[...]
President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14). [emphases added]
update (3:09pm):
Dinesh D'Souza rushed to the administration's defense, claiming that "Actually Bush didn't lie," but whitewashing the White House is no longer convincing. Richard Clarke has been puncturing these defensive evasions for years; here's how Bush pressured him to tie Iraq to 9/11:
The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this."I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'
In the absence of any facts, Decider Dubya simply decided that his whim was enough for war. He could just make an occasional triumphant claim that "we found the WMDs" and the compliant corporate media would accept his claim and move on to the next celebrity sex scandal.
I am not quite sure what the motive beinhd your question is but one would expect an American to show proper decorum and respect given the topic. Nor, do I think it would be wise under the circumstances to bestow an award upon anyone, especially publicly given that there is a great chance of possible retaliation directed towards the US and other nations. The war on terrorism has not ended, and yes, George W. Bush did contribute to the recent operation as well as, other Administrations before and after his term, and Intelligence agencies here and abroad, and a whole host of military organizations, and informants. FYI: Its the Nobel Peace Prize, and the US doesn't hand out this award. I would like again to make a suggestion that the racist remarks that our leader is a Buckwheat, and that he was elected because he is a Black man and that bizarre and immature tingle nonsense is completely out of character for most Americans, which includes those that have firmly planted roots here and to those that are newbies. Learn to become something our country can be proud of and the party that you so adamantly support. Was this answer helpful?