President George Bush was braced for one of the toughest fights of his political life yesterday as a fierce row broke out over whether he has been misleading the American public over the worsening violence in Iraq. The crisis also rippled across the Atlantic with claims that the administration hid crucial Iraq intelligence from its British allies.
There has been no shortage of revelations in the past three years about the stream of lies and deceptions concerning Saddam Hussein's supposed WMDs. We know for a fact now that the WMD threat promoted by President Bush, Australian Prime Minister Howard and British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a conspiracy-fat, fantasy plot that shotgunned the majority of Americans and most US senators into supporting the 'War On Iraq'. Even those opposed to the war learned to live with those WMD threat falsifications.
But it is the mystifying lies Bush has told about the reality of the war itself that are now set to plunge the rest of his presidency, and the control of the United States, into total chaos.
Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld lied to Americans get the war they wanted, but there seems to be no excuse at all for why they continued to mythologise the truth about the facts on the ground, particularly when hundreds of veterans were posting on their experiences to MySpace blogs and mil-blogs, and there were, literally, thousands of websites shredding the deceptions that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney were creating as fast as they could utter the words.
Why cover up the truth about the 'War On Iraq' once it had begun? The enemies knew the facts about the attacks they were launching on coalition troops, after all, they were responsible.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to spin-spin-spin the facts solely for the domestic market. It was a PR campaign to ensure the Republicans held onto the White House through the 2004 elections, obviously enough, but they continue to deny the truth that seemingly everyone who is interested already knows is bullshit.
The Iraqi insurgency, and the resistance, are stronger than they've ever been, attacks against coalition forces continue to hit new, incredible peaks (an attack every 15 minutes on average) and 2007 is set to be even worse than 2006, or 2005, or 2004.
The people who will be most affected most by the new relevations of how Bush Co lied and covered-up the truth about the 'War On Iraq' will be all the parents and partners of American soldiers who were told by Bush, "We Are Winning The War" when he clearly knew they were not.
They trusted him, yet again, and he betrayed them. As he has betrayed so many of his supporters and so many of his own staff and senators.
Beyond Watergate? It's beyond belief. Even the most vitriolic Bush-haters on the internet seem mortified that the truth Bush has long known was even worse than they themselves imagined, or fact-projected in their online posts and rantings.
Few of the thousands of websites devoted to criticising and keeping a close watch on Bush Co and the most controversial presidency in American history are taking any pleasure in the knowledge that they have been right all along to question the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld myths about the realities on the ground in Iraq. The shock seeping through Bush critics and Bush supporters is palpable and intense.
But there may be far worse to come. If President Bush was willing to flat-out lie straight to the faces of all Americans about the war in which more than 2700 Americans have died, and more than 20,000 have been seriously wounded, then what else has he lied about?
What comes next?
Whatever it is, it's not going to be good.
Bush At War : "A Passive, Impatient, Sophomoric And Intellectually Incurious Leader, Presiding Over A Grossly Dysfunctional War Cabinet"
In His Last Meeting With Bush, Colin Powell Tried To Warn Bush About Realities Of Iraq, But Bush Didn't Listen
Extract from Woodward's 'State Of Denial' : Secret Reports Betray Bush Co Optimism On Iraq War
Bush Kept British PM In The Dark Over Iraq - Blair Refused Access To Daming Intel Reports By The US
