Dr. Jim's WebLog

Lie: 
NOUN:
1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

"Bush lied about Uranium and Iraq."  Well, not exactly.  He said in State of Union that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger.  This was called a lie.  Now we find out that the British Government has evidence that Iraq was trying to buy...uranium! (from Reuters.)  So, since Bush's statement was not false, it was not a lie.   From this point on, anyone who says Bush lied about uranium is...lying.

"Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq."  Well, not exactly, for two reasons.  First, Iraq definitely has had WMD; they gassed their own people a number of years ago.  Second, several binary artillery shells with Sarin gas have turned up in Iraq.  So it's just not credible to call it false.  Second, most of the leaders of the world thought Iraq still had WMD.  The most that you can (honestly) say about Bush was, "Well, maybe he was right or maybe he was wrong about WMD (it depends on how many nerve gas shells I happen to think is enough to call a WMD) but it is reasonable to think that he really believed it."  Hard to call it a lie; perhaps at most a mistake but certainly not a "lie."  So, given that there are some bad weapons in Iraq and the intelligence communities of multiple nations (including our own) believed there were more, Bush's statements are not lies...and so, anyone who at this point says Bush lied is...lying.

(Also, remember that Iraq is about the size of California.  How long would it take a few thousand soldiers to search the state of California?)