WASHINGTON (FMLiveWire) - President Bush has acknowledged that he lied hundreds of times about Iraq in order to warp public opinion into supporting the Iraq oil war.
"Yup, sure, why not?" said Bush in a candid interview with FMLiveWire. "The only reason we invaded Iraq was to grab their oil for Exxon Mobil, so American oil and gas pigs could continue their wasteful lifestyles and to grow Big Oil's profits. Lying is about all we ever do here."
The surprising admission was in response to a new study by two nonprofit journalism organizations which found that President Bush and his officials gave hundreds of false statements about the non-existent threat from Iraq in the two years following 911.
The study counted 935 "intentionally misleading" statements in the two-year period.
It found that in speeches, briefings, press releases and interviews, Bush and administration officials stated at least 532 times that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, was trying to produce or obtain them, or had links to al-Qaida. All such statements were blatant lies geared to lead the American people by the nose.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
"In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."
The liars included Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, presidential advisor Karl Rove, Bert, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries.
Bush led the pack with 259 false statements, 231 about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's imaginary links to al-Qaida. That was second to Powell's 244 lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
"The cumulative effect of these false statements - amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts - was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.
Bush added that he and his cronies are "now lying about Iran too and about the abysmal state of the indebted US economy which is going down the tube as the financial crisis accelerates."
"Hey, you would lie too if you had to deal with the mess we've made," Bush said defensively. "Hell, if Israel can lie about how it always steals Palestinian land and get away with it, why can't we?"
The groundbreaking study concluded that the lies "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The study was posted on the web site of the Center for Public Integrity which collaborated with the Fund for Independence in Journalism to create the report.
--Copyright Felix Minderbinder Live Wire