“No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it’s just simply not true.”

helen thomas touches a sore spot...

In a nationally televised press conference, George W. Bush repeated some of his favorite lies about the Iraq War, including the canard that he was forced to invade because Saddam Hussein blocked the work of United Nations weapons inspectors in 2003.

Bush has uttered this lie in a variety of forms over more than 2 ½ years, yet the Washington press corps has never challenged the President directly about the falsehood. He got away with it again on March 21 when no journalist followed up the question from Helen Thomas that elicited Bush’s response.

Some TV commentary about the Thomas-Bush exchange even suggested that Bush had scored points with the American public for calling on – and then slapping down – the senior White House correspondent who is known for her irreverent and acerbic questions. But Bush’s truthfulness wasn’t questioned.

Bush reasserted his false claim about the U.N. inspectors after Thomas noted that Bush’s pre-war rationales had turned out to be false, an apparent reference to Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s supposed links to al-Qaeda.

“Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime,” Thomas said. “Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true.

“My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth -- but what's your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil, the quest for oil. It hasn’t been Israel or anything else. What was it?”

Bristling at the question, Bush said, “I think your premise, in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist – that I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect. …

“No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it’s just simply not true.”

you wanted war, you bastard, and so did everyone in your advisory circle...

“I also saw a threat in Iraq,” Bush said. “I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That’s why I went to the Security Council. That’s why it was important to pass (Resolution) 1441, which was unanimously passed.

“And the world said, ‘Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences.’ And therefore, we worked with the world. We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did. And the world is safer for it.”

liar, liar, pants on fire... yeah, let's look for a minute at just how much safer the world is now because of your friggin' illegal war...

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