Statements by Bush, Rummy cannot be trusted

Gregory Djerejiam at Belgravia Dispatch takes quotes from the media saying that there were no plans at that time to invade Iraq, then compares them to facts from the new book Cobra II by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor to show how far along the plans reallly were at the time the public was told there were no such plane. Bush stated:

Bush asserted that Iraq's WMD programs were a serious threat but that he had not prepared an invasion strategy. "I told the Chancellor that I have no war plans on my desk, which is the truth, and that we've got to use all means at our disposal to deal with Saddam Hussein." The president made a similar comment in Paris three days later. [Ed. note: See here too for a third example of the 'no attack plans on my desk' stump response. Clearly this was language the President had decided to go with purposefully, in other words, it was not a slip of the tongue at a single press conference].

[Tommy] Franks went further. In late May, a radio reporter asked him how many troops he would need for an invasion of Iraq. "That's a great question and one for which I don't have an answer because my boss has not yet asked me to put together a plan to do that," Franks said. "They have not asked me for these kinds of numbers. And I guess I would tell you, if there comes a time when my boss asks me that, that I'd rather provide those sorts of assessments to him. But thanks for your question.

The president's statement was true in only the most literal but trivial sense. Bush had ordered the development of a new CENTCOM war plan, repeately met with Franks to hear its details, offered his own views on the schedule for deploying troops and on the military's effort to couch the invasion as a liberation, and sent his vice president halfway around the world to secure allies for the war. And as for Franks, even the cleverest hair-splitting could not reconcile his remarks with the activity of CENTCOM during the previous six months. (Cobra II, p. 51-52)

Notice how closely the current statements from Bush and Rumsfeld resemble the ones before the Iraq invasion. The planned media term this time is "wild speculation" rather then the earlier "I have no plans on my desk."

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Not only does Bush have no credibility, it is safest to assume that everything out of his mouth to the media is a lie in one way or another.