DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
The Bush administration marched into war with Iraq armed with inaccurate intelligence and extravagant hopes that have cost both sides dearly and de-stabilized the entire region.
Following is a series of quotations, statements and subsequent outcomes of some of the main justifications that led the United States to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003:
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Weapons of Mass Destruction Claims
* President George W. Bush, two days before the war's start: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
* Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in September 2002: "We don't want 'the smoking gun' to be a mushroom cloud."
* Vice President Dick Cheney on Aug. 26, 2002: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction…Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."
* An October 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate -- representing the consensus views of the American intelligence community -- concludes that Iraq is pursuing a nuclear device, has an active biological weapons program and has resumed making deadly mustard, sarin and VX chemical agents.
Findings
* In an exhaustive 2005 review, the blue-ribbon Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction finds that the NIE's conclusions were flat wrong.
"The intelligence community's Iraq assessments were, in short, riddled with errors," the commission concludes.
"The harm done to American credibility by our all too public intelligence failings in Iraq will take years to undo." |
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Links to al-Qaeda Claims
* Top Bush administration officials spoke of ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda and implied Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Cheney said on Sept. 14, 2003: "He (Saddam) had long established ties with al-Qaeda."
Findings
* But independent bodies, including the Sept. 11 commission, found there had been no collaborative links between Iraq and the militant network before the 2003 invasion.
* In February 2007, a report by the Pentagon inspector general said former U.S. defense policy chief Douglas Feith presented the White House with claims of a "mature symbiotic relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda while ignoring contradictory views from the intelligence community. |
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Iraqi Resistance Claims
* Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press" on March 16, 2003: "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
Findings
* In fact, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of insurgent and sectarian attacks since the invasion. According to the human rights group Iraq Body Count, up to 89,700 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2003. Over the same period, U.S. military deaths have reached nearly 4,000. |
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Cost of War Claims
* In September 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, then director of the White House National Economic Council, estimated that war with Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion.
* The Bush administration quickly disputes the assertion, with White House budget director Mitch Daniels calling it "very, very high." Other officials estimate the tab at $50 billion.
Findings
* A congressional report released in January 2008 shows the U.S. Congress has so far set aside $440 billion for the war, plus $21 billion to support Iraqi security forces and $26 billion for diplomatic operations and foreign aid. |
