Delusions of the true believer
Bush ‘Still Believed Saddam Possessed WMD’ In April 2006
In Oct. 2004, President Bush finally admitted that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction: “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.”Yet according to former White House chief of staff Andy Card, this statement was just rhetoric. In his new book on Bush, Robert Draper writes that the President continued to privately insist through April 2006 that Saddam had possessed weapons of mass destruction.
</em>Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction
By Sidney Blumenthal
Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam’s inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again. |
According to Bush, faith is a central component of his life. He credits his faith in overcoming an addiction to alcohol, among other things. What is faith?
According to one definition, it’s belief that is not based on proof.
Raised in a family that has revolved around a nexus of big money, war, and their twisted concept of public service, George Bush added the debilitating crutch of faith. His father didn’t proclaim his religious beliefs while participating in Iran Contra, or when he OKed the “turkey shoot” slaughter of fleeing Iraqis in Desert Storm. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, most likely kept his faith close to the vest when doing business with the Nazi regime. But George Bush has proclaimed his faith in nearly every speech, investing his war mongering rhetoric with proclamations of gods will, good triumphing over evil. You could say he’s on a crusade.
So when you read what appears to be contradictory accounts of Bush and the non-existent WMDs in Iraq- his refusal to believe in his advisors when they told him something that didn’t jibe with his pre-conceived notions, you can see what his “faith” has brought us to. When Card, who is a Bushie to the death, admits that the president persisted in “believing” what no other human on earth- outside of the nattering sycophants of right wing propaganda radio- thought to be true, you shudder at the enormity of his ignorance. A true believer cannot be persuaded by contrary opinion, never moved by mere facts. George Bush and his faith told Pat Robertson, pre-invasion, that we’d have no casualties in Iraq. It was something he wanted to be true, so in his mind, it was true, because he had faith that what he was doing was right. Circumventing the Constitution he was sworn to protect? He was raised in a political family- a family long accustomed to raising their right hand in a vow that they forsake even before the words have been said- so ignoring the laws of our country is practically in Bush’s DNA.
George Bush clearly believes. He has faith. He has faith in a deity that can’t be proven, in a war that never should have started and can’t be won. He has faith in the effectiveness of torture, ethnic cleansing, and nuclear war.
And what do we have? Faith in our constitution, in our system of checks and balances. In our ability to stay the advance of tyranny by believing we can simply vote it away.
George Bush believes. But he doesn’t believe as we do. And he has the bombs.
And in the end, all we have is hope. Hope, hope that someone, somewhere, will stop him. Hope is all we can have, because in the end, we have no other tools. We marched in the streets, he invaded. We tossed his ruling party out, and our voting elected a party without a spine to replace them.
So who’s faith do you think will triumph?