Monday night’s 15-minute speech by President Bush, setting a 48-hour deadline for war against Iraq, went beyond the usual distortions, half-truths, and appeals to fear and backwardness to include a remarkable number of barefaced, easily refuted lies.
The enormous scale of the lying suggests two political conclusions: the Bush administration is going to war against Iraq with utter contempt for democracy and public opinion, and its war propaganda counts heavily on the support of the American media, which not only fails to challenge the lies, but repeats and reinforces them endlessly.
Without attempting to be exhaustive, it is worthwhile listing some of the most important lies and contrasting Bush’s assertions with the public record. All of the false statements listed below are directly quoted from the verbatim transcript of Bush’s remarks published on the Internet.
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