After careful review of all evidence, the Senate committee investigating the issue for the last four years has concluded that every claim the Bush administration made on Iraq was spectacularly wrong. Saddam abandoned his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 1991, destroyed stockpiles and considered Al Qaeda a threat, not an ally.

Furthermore, the administration totally fabricated statements it made to the public, brushing off contradictory evidence and ignoring the warnings of the intelligence agencies.

For example:

Conclusion 12: Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence. (p. 71)

Or this:

Conclusion 4: Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing. (p. 38)

This bipartisan committee, consisting of esteemed members of the Senate, came to the sad conclusion that the administration was “fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises” (p. 91) and “ignored the pre-war judgments of the intelligence community.” (p. 92). The report goes on to say “after five years and the loss of over 4,000 American lives, these ignored judgments were tragically prescient.”

The jury has finally spoken. George W. Bush lied to the American people to start the war. Only one task remains - impeach the liar.

Thanks to Camille_Claudel below for drawing our attention to this most urgent matter.

malfeasance, and with the consequences of that malfeasance so dire, it should simply be a matter of time until the leaders of the Democratics majorities in both Houses take the first official steps towards formal impeachment proceedings. It should be a no-brainer that the Democratic party presidential nominee will publicly throw his considerable weight into the effort as soon as possible. It's a matter of principle, after all.

Members of the Democratic Party have shown themselves to be cowards where holding Bush to any sort of standards at all is concerned.

Like you Americans haven't known this inbred little hick bastard hadn't been lying all along. Of course you all knew.

Hey man! - I'm really proud of how you're doin over there (you know where I mean.)

But I'm surprised you haven't called Jim Hayes something "scrofulous" yet.

was a bit of a strange read immediately after posting this.

BTW, received "The Greek Passion" yesterday. An interesting read so far.

The rest just wanted to kill someone and Iraqi's looked like an easy target. Remember, in Texas they hunt on ranches that are fenced in, spread feed in front of tree blinds and call that sport. We call it butchering out here....

but unfortunately not coercive.

<link>

"The final two Phase II reports and the process that produced them are a great disappointment. The products are poor and the process that produced them was regrettable. Although the Minority requested to be involved in the production of these reports at the start of the 110th Congress, we were exclused from the drafting of these reports and deprived of any meaningful role in the work that produced them.

We believe the Senate Intelligence Committee, above all others in the Senate, should be a Committee where Members work together absent political agendas for the good of the nation. The process that produced these reports, unfortunately, was not in keeping with that conviction, and we are disappointed with the results. We fully concur with the Vice Chairman's views submitted as an assessment on the substance of the two reports; here, however, we believe it is necessary to make know our disappointment over the process by which they were produced...." it goes on to detail the partisan nature of this phase of the investiagations.

Then, while trying to hunt down the Vice Chairman's views as above referenced, I found the following, commencing on page 101

"This majority-only written report by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a great disappointment to us and an unfortunate commentary on the political nature of intelligence oversight in the Congress today. We regret that at a time when the Committee should be focusing its full attention on improving our intelligence community, closing gaps in critical intelligence, and making our country safer, that the Committee finds itself again consumed with political gamesmanship. Although we asked from the beginning of this investigation to be included in it, we were cut out; although we asked that Members of the Commitee produce the conclusions on this report, two majority staff were assigned to the task; and although we had over 50 amendments on the table at our Committee meeting on this report, we were not allowed to offer any of them. We have rarely seen such a poorly handled congressional investigation, and we believe the facts detailed below speak for themselves."

... if you're interested in reading a detailed set of facts that demonstrate fully why liberals are the ones lying here, feel free. Of the pages I have read so far from the minority opinion, I am fascinated.

I would ask yourselves to consider the honesty of the top poster in presenting this as a bipartisan report in the way he did. Is he lying? I suppose he could argue that because the minority opinion that the report is partisan political hackery was included at the end of the document that it is therefore, on balance "bipartisan" in that we can read both sides. But is that how his post was presented to you?

I'll let the liars parse it.

Perfectly illustrating why Congressional approval ratings are actually higher among GOPers than Dems.

Woolley, I usually try to avoid jumping in someone else's sub-thread, but you and I have had our go 'rounds and I thought it fair to point this out in case you missed it today:

link

You say you "knew" he lied, but don't you mean you simply thought he lied?

Cheney and Bush. They will do and say anything to promote their agendas. Yes, I do think they knew what they were saying was not 100% certain. The lie was not that the intelligence community was saying X and they said Y. The lie was the absolute certainty, the photo's of Colin Powell, the trailers in Kirkuk, the threat itself was a lie. They are criminals in my mind, all of them. History will not treat them or this generation kindly for we sat by and let them do it.

You think but you don't know. So Harry Reid and co. produce wretched crap like that report and instead of handing them their asses as they deserve for playing partisan politics on the Intelligence Committee, you give them a big "Ataboy! Knew it all along!"