|
|
|
 Technology News | January 2008 
Web Site Assembles US Prewar Claims
 John H. Cushman Jr. - New York Times
go to original
Washington - Students of how the Bush administration led the nation into the Iraq war can now go online to browse a comprehensive database of top officials' statements before the invasion, connecting the dots between hundreds of claims, mostly discredited since then, linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda or warning that he possessed forbidden weapons.
The Center for Public Integrity, a research group that focuses on ethics in government and public policy, designed the new Web site to allow simple searches for specific phrases, such as "mushroom cloud" or "yellowcake uranium," in transcripts and documents totaling some 380,000 words, including remarks by President Bush and most of his top advisers in the two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Warnings about the need to confront Iraq, by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and two White House press secretaries, among others, can be combed line by line, and reviewed alongside detailed critiques published after the fact by official panels, historians, journalists and independent experts.
There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call "wallowing in Watergate."
The database is online at www.publicintegrity.org.
Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the research center say their work has documented "at least 935 false statements" on hundreds of occasions, particularly that Iraq had unconventional weapons, links to Al Qaeda, or both.
The database shows how even after the invasion, when a consensus emerged that the prewar intelligence assessments were flawed, administration officials occasionally suggested that the weapons might still be found.
The officials have defended many of their prewar statements as having been based on the intelligence that was available at the time - although there is now evidence that some statements contradicted even the sketchy intelligence of the time.
President Bush said in 2005 that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong" but that "it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power." |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us