- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Did Saddam 'deny the inspectors'? In the most technical sense, he did. Saddam was not 100% compliant every day at every site. This is how Bush gets away with misleading the public, he wraps a blatantly false premise which conveys his message around a miniscule piece of the truth.
We can endlessly debate the logics and semantics of this but I think the simplest thing to do is look at the intent and effect of Bush's rhetoric. Bush's obvious intent is to lead his audience to a conclusion not supported by the facts. Ergo, he is a best a spin doctor.
Personally, I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of being labelled a spin doctor. Listening to his other Iraq rhetoric, how many times have we heard Bush say something along the lines of, "We were attacked on 9/11, so we had to do something about Saddam Hussein." He doesn't state outright that Saddam was behind 9/11, which we know to be untrue, but his implication is clear. As a result, we have a bizarre reality where 20-30% of the American public believes Saddam was behind 9/11 but Bush can claim he never directly linked the two.
