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How the US-government justified war against Iraq - true stories

The two official reasons for attacking Iraq were the link to Al-Qaede and thus an immense terrorist threat, and the production of weapons of mass desctruction in Iraq, including a secret nuclear program.

Remember the claims about secret mobile chemical labs hidden in trucks and trains (how technically sophisticated, i doubt even the USA themselves could do that!!), the alleged smuggle of Uranium from Africa, the masses of terrorists supposed to be trained in Iraq and maybe getting access to nukes and chemical weapons?

Rest assured - you don't have to be afraid of them all. And that's not because the USA were quite victorious in Iraq. It's because there are no weapons of mass desctruction, there is no nuclear program, there are no Al-Qaeda terrorists eager to go and get you. And there never were.

March 16, 2003
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," Cheney said March 16 on NBC's "Meet the Press."

September 14, 2003
"Yeah, I did misspeak .... We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon," said Cheney to "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert

September 11, 2003
"a great many of [Osama] bin Laden's key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on ABC's "Good Morning America."

September 12, 2003
Wolfowitz said he had misspoken
he was" actually referring only to bin Laden supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is alleged to have set up a training camp in far northern Iraq"

"Zarqawi is actually the guy I was referring to – should have been more precise. It's not a great many – it's one of bin Laden's key associates – probably better referred to that way than a key lieutenant."

(U.S. intelligence officials, however, have not confirmed a link, and have noted he may have acted independently of bin Laden's network. )

The administration has produced no credible evidence of direct Iraqi sponsorship of al-Qaida attacks on America or its interests abroad – an alleged conspiracy the U.S. intelligence community dismissed before the war in a 90-page classified report to the president, though he still suggested otherwise in public speeches and remarks.

In arguing for war, Bush insisted the U.S. had to disarm Saddam's regime of alleged weapons of mass destruction before it could share them with al-Qaida terrorists and top the 9-11 attacks with possibly a "mushroom cloud." He said his regime posed an imminent threat to America, making preemptive invasion justified.

Eleven days after the invasion, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

"We know where they are (weapons of mass destruction)," March 30 interview with ABC's "This Week"

Sept 10, 2003, when asked if the weapons have been found
Rumsfeld: "In that instance, we had been in the country for about 15 seconds; sometimes I overstate for emphasis .... I should have said, 'I believe they're in that area'" around Tikrit and Baghdad.

In congressional testimony in July, Rumsfeld swore repeatedly that he'd just "days" earlier learned that the uranium charge Bush made against Iraq six months earlier was based at least in part on fabricated reports.

A few days later, however, he had to correct the record twice, finally admitting he knew the allegation was false as early as March – less than two months after Bush trumpeted it in his State of the Union speech and just before the Iraq war started.

"When did you know that the reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus?" asked Sen. Mark Pryor, D.-Ark., at a July 9 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on "lessons learned" in Iraq.

"Oh, within recent days, since the information started becoming available," Rumsfeld replied.

"So right after the [State of the Union] speech, you didn't know that?" Pryor pressed.

"I've just answered the question," Rumsfeld snapped.

Asked about it again, the defense secretary insisted: "Do I recall hearing anything or reading anything like that? The answer is as I've given it – no."

But in a July 13 interview with NBC's Russert, Rumsfeld backpedaled from his testimony.

Russert: "When Sen. Pryor asked you when did you know that reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus, you said, 'Oh, within recent days.'"

Rumsfeld: "I should have said within recent weeks, meaning when ElBaradei came out" with the revelation that the allegation was baseless.

In another Sunday show, ABC's "This Week," which aired later that morning, Rumsfeld further revised his story to say he learned "months," not weeks, ago of the false charge.

Rumsfeld insists he hasn't repeated the allegation since learning it was false in March.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency, told the U.N. Security Council on March 7 that documents allegedly showing Iraqi officials shopping two years ago for uranium in Africa were forgeries

So - the war was not about weapons of mass desctruction. It was not about a nuclear power program. It was not about 9/11-terrorists.

And it was not about oil, as such an accusation from gay left-wing guys and moronic peaceniks was always denied.

So what was the war about then??