Liar

George Bush never lets the truth get in the way.

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

Now we're supposed to believe what this person's administration tells us about the threat posed by Iran.

But it appears CBS still isn't sure Bush was lying when he said, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." However, the following paragraphs appear under its headline, "Did White House Push Bogus WMD Claim?" (It's utterly amazing that such a headline could be written by informed people in 2006.)

The administration called the trailers mobile "biological laboratories," and Mr. Bush declared: "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

Three years later, The Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration publicly made that claim at that time even though U.S. intelligence officials already had strong evidence the trailers were not labs for making large scale biological weapons.

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was cited then as supporting evidence for the decision to go to war.

As the Post notes, in late June, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the "confidence level is increasing" that the trailers were intended for biowarfare. In September, Vice President Cheney pronounced the trailers to be "mobile biological facilities," and said they could have been used to produce anthrax or smallpox.

But a secret mission to Iraq, according to the Post, had already concluded the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of a Pentagon-sponsored mission, according to a report on the newspaper's web site, sent their findings to Washington in a report on May 27, 2003 - two days before the president's statement.

The Post quoted a DIA spokesman as saying the team's findings were incorporated into the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The survey group concluded the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were probably intended for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.

So what exactly is CBS questioning, the veracity of the Post report?

Let me simplify this for the editors over at CBS news:

Did Bush say, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction"? Yes. You reported it in the first paragraph of the story asking if the White House pushed a bogus WMD claim. The quote also appears on your Web site here.

Have WMD's been found in Iraq? No, and you knew this because you reported it here and here and here.

So in response to the question you published as a headline, "Did White House Push Bogus WMD Claim?" the answer is YES!

Got it?