TRUTH

This Is The War That Started With Lies, And Continues With Lie After Lie After Lie

By Patrick Cockburn | The Independent

RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images A US Marine drapes a flag over the face of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad on 9 April 2003

It has been a war of lies from the start. All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War.

The outcome has been an official picture of Iraq akin to fantasy and an inability to learn from mistakes because of a refusal to admit that any occurred. Yet the war began with just such a mistake. Five years ago, on the evening of 19 March 2003, President George Bush appeared on American television to say that military action had started against Iraq.

This was a veiled reference to an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein by dropping four 2,000lb bombs and firing 40 cruise missiles at a place called al-Dura farm in south Baghdad, where the Iraqi leader was supposedly hiding in a bunker. There was no bunker. The only casualties were one civilian killed and 14 wounded, including nine women and a child.

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Posted by Me on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 3/21/2008 08:45:00 pm | Permalink