Did the Bush administration mislead the country during the runup to the Iraq war? It's true that they turned out to be wrong about a great many things, but that doesn't answer the question. It merely begs it. Were they sincerely wrong, or did they intentionally manipulate the intelligence they presented to the public in order to mask known weaknesses in their case?
Kevin provides "a list of five key dissents about administration claims, all of which were circulated before the war but kept under wraps until after the war".
His conclusion:
It would have been perfectly reasonable for the White House to present all the evidence pro and con and then use that evidence to make the strongest possible case for war. But that's not what they did. Instead, they suppressed any evidence that might have thrown doubt on their arguments, making it impossible for the public to evaluate what they were saying...
This is not the way to market a war. It's certainly not the way to market a war that requires long term support from citizens in a democracy. But that's how they marketed it anyway.
I provide a lot of links here at The Reaction, but this one's particularly important given Bush's 11/11 speech and the current discussion of "revisionism". Plus, scroll down through all the comments, currently numbering over 300. Feel free to agree or disagree with Kevin's thesis in the comments section to this post, or otherwise to add your own views on whether Bush misled the country into war. I'm interested to know what you all think.
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