Quote Originally Posted by VanChilds View Post
I think the term lied is thrown around a little loosely. In retrospect obviously the Iraq invasion was a complete farce. Saddam didn't have WMD, didn't pose a serious security risk to the US and was largely contained. I think Bush and his advisors clearly created an enviroment that fostered finding intelligence to justify the invasion rather than decide if it was necessary or warranted at all. I know to some of you this is purely splitting hairs. I just don't believe that Powell gets up in front of the UN and knowingly tells them bold faced lies. I think if Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz etc knew he was misrepresenting the facts it would have come out by now. Saddam revealed during his debriefings that he did destroy or get rid of all of the WMD after the Gulf War but needed his military and nation at large to believe he had them to maintain power and further more needed the Arab nations to believe to keep his rep. Is it any less tragic the outcome being due to over zealous incompetence rather than malicious deceit? Not really...but since speculating should Bush be tried for war crimes is on par to speculating if Tyson would beat Ali it really doesn't matter
Wolfowitz stated personally that since the very beginning, they knew that there was no WMD but that they did need bureaucratic reasons to invade Iraq and to push Saddam. Also, never forget that they created forged papers to support that Saddam had uranium. and they punished Joseph Wilson by leaking the name of his wife for stating that such trade never happened. They knew, Powell knew and probably disagree to say what he said but it was an order and he had no choice to tell what he got told to do.