SMH : Bush is lying to you about Iraq, Americans told

Bush is lying to you about Iraq, Americans told

Michael Gawenda | Herald Correspondent in Washington | September 30, 2006

THE Bush Administration has lied about the level of violence in Iraq, especially against American troops, according to the investigative reporter Bob Woodward, who has spent the past two years researching and writing his new book State of Denial.

Woodward says that not only has the Administration lied about the level of violence, but it has buried intelligence reports that warn of the insurgency in Iraq getting worse in 2007.

The book, a detailed account of the war in Iraq, will hit the book stores in the next few weeks, and observers say it will not please the US President, George Bush - who agreed to be interviewed by Woodward - or his senior officials.

Woodward will be interviewed on the American program 60 Minutes tomorrow and The Washington Post will publish excerpts of the book at the weekend.

According to Woodward, there is an insurgent attack on coalition forces in Iraq every 15 minutes, which means close to 100 attacks a day. The Pentagon last month reported 800 attacks a month in Iraq, including attacks on Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians - far below Woodward's figures.

On a clip for 60 Minutes, Woodward says both the White House and the Pentagon are not telling Americans the truth.

"The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the President and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh no, things are getting better"', he said.

"Now there's public and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it 'secret'. No one is supposed to know. The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public."

The Woodward claim came just two days after a US intelligence report, parts of which were declassified by Mr Bush after leaks of key findings to the media, said that the war in Iraq had became a "cause celebre" for jihadists around the world.

White House and Pentagon officials denied Americans were being lied to about the level of violence in Iraq.

Woodward also claims Mr Bush and the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, often meet with a former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who has become an informal White House adviser.

"Now what's Kissinger's advice?" Woodward said. "On Iraq, he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

Meanwhile, on a mid-term election campaign swing through Alabama, Mr Bush significantly increased his rhetoric, accusing Democrats of "lacking the stomach" to combat terrorism.

"Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on the American homeland in our history, Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing," he said.

"The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

This was the first time Mr Bush has used the words "cut and run", though it has been used regularly by Mr Cheney and by senior congressional Republicans.