Un estudio concluye que la administración Bush hizo 935 afirmaciones falsas sobre la amenaza de Iraq

Cristina Fernández Pereda 

El presidente de los Estados Unidos George W. Bush y siete de sus máximos responsables hicieron 935 declaraciones falsas sobre la amenaza que suponía Irak en los dos años siguientes a los ataques del 11-S, según un estudio de dos organizaciones no gubernamentales norteamericanas.

El estudio, Iraq-The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War (Irak-La Carta Bélica: Una Mentira Orquestada en el camino hacia la Guerra), recoge documentación de cada afirmación oficial (en discursos, ruedas de prensa o entrevistas), hecha por los ocho líderes de la Administración Bush entre el 11 de septiembre de 2001 y el 11 de septiembre de 2003 acerca de la posesión de armas de destrucción masiva por parte del régimen de Sadam Hussein o sus vínculos con Al Qaeda.

Photo by CFPereda
Charles Lewis y Bill Buzenberg
durante la presentación del estudio.

“La Administración Bush llevó al país hacia la guerra basandose en información errónea que propagó metódicamente y que culminó en acción militar contra Irak en Marzo de 2003″, afirmó en Washington, D.C. Charles Lewis, líder del estudio.

El resultado de la investigación es una base de datos de más de 380.000 palabras que recoge las falsas afirmaciones del presidente Bush, el vicepresidente Dick Cheney, la asesora de Seguridad Nacional Condoleeza Rice, el secretario de Estado Colin Powell, el secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld, el sub-secretario de Defensa Paul Wolfowitz y los responsables de prensa de la Casa Blanca Ari Fleischer y Scout McLellan.

Cada una de las afirmaciones es juxtapuesta con “lo que dijeron frente a la información que conocían en privado”, según declaraciones de Charles Lewis, fundador del Centro para la Integridad Pública y presidente del Fondo para la Independencia del Periodismo, las dos organizaciones responsables del estudio.

El presidente Bush lidera la lista de falsas afirmaciones sobre la posesión de armas de destrucción masiva por parte de Irak y sobre sus vínculos con Al Qaeda, con 260 afirmaciones. Le sigue el entonces secretario de Estado Colin Powell con 254 y el secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld y el responsable de prensa de la Casa Blanca Ari Fleisher con 109.

“Lo que no sabemos es quién dirigió todo esto. Nadie ha tenido acceso a los emails de la Casa Blanca. Nadie sabe nada de las reuniones privadas ni cuándo tuvieron lugar. Nadie se ha adelantado y asumido plena responsabilidad de la campaña que se llevó a cabo”, declaró Lewis en la presentación del estudio en Washington, D.C.

Este artículo fue publicado en la sección Yo, Periodista de www.elpais.com el 24 de Enero de 2007.
English version.

Questions

I was surprised to know that until two years ago almost no one here questioned the war in Iraq. A war worth $2 billion a week.
I was surprised because in Europe those questions were all over the media. Here, newspapers and tv and radio stations are sometimes blamed for just having said what Washington said without offering other points of view on the situation.
If the media were saying what the Bush Administration said, how did people get to know that the war in Iraq could somehow be questioned?
Books, blogs, magazines, investigative journalism, foreign correspondents, connections with international meida… might be filling the gap american media failed to cover. And some Americans are looking now towards that gap, reading what is being said, making questions.
Books like “The Long Road Home” by Martha Raddatz, the ABC News reporter who narrates in her book the ambush suffered by a platoon in Sadr City, a neighborhood in Baghdad. The book mentions several times how the troops, just arrived a few days earlier, didn’t expect their mission to include anything rather than reconstruction duties.
Americans know now that most troops in Iraq had never been in combat. They know how young they are. They know Iraq has come out to be something different from what they thought. And many wonder if they want their troops taking care of security and police duties in a hostile enviroment or they prefer them home.

End The War Now Sept. 15

Marching

I had heard and read a lot about the desire to bring the troops home before I came to the United States. There is something that is not being told outside the U.S. and it’s that one of the reasons why some Democrats and part of the society want the troops back is because they no longer believe in this war, but also because they feel the soldiers haven’t been well protected. That the war wasn’t well planned.
The difference in Europe is that we get the impression that the war wasn’t well planned for the Iraqis. Well, the U.S. also wants that everything is ok with their troops.

Photo by Dyane Jean François Fils

Covering the march last Saturday was an experience. I learnt how difficult it is to be at the right place all the time. How lucky you have to be sometimes to be at the right place, at the right time.
Personally, I was surprised how many people from different ages went to the protest. And how many of them are participating in a very strong social movement to bring the troops home. They are going to protest in D.C. for two weeks. Some people say that it’s like the social movement against the war in Vietnam, in fact, some of the veterans who were there and the people who participated in those protests are here now.

Going to Capitol Hill

Whenever I am watching the news with my family and suddenly the correspondent in Washington appears on the screen, they all stop talking. They know I want to listen. It doesn’t matter if the reporter is talking about a session in Congress or the last prosecution that took place on the streets of any town in the country.

The Capitol

I’ve stared at the image of the reporter with the Capitol in the background so many times that I couldn’t believe I was there.
The first time I went to Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower I ran from the metro stop until I saw it. The same when I visited the Fontana di Trevi in Rome. But I got off the train at Capitol South and everyone was so dressed up, so formal, it didn’t seem like the kind of place where you can start running with a smile on your face just to see the Dome.

I still think of myself walking inside the building, counting the flags by each door, trying to figure out what State they belong to, and I cannot believe it was me. I’ve thought about it so many times, I still can’t say it is true.

The Dome of the Capitol Building

When I left, I had to take a walk around the buildings. I wanted to see that I was in the Capitol, that the Dome was actually behind the Cannon Building. I would’ve taken a picture to have all the details, but I didn’t.

If I had taken it, my memory of this day would be that photograph and what I wanted to keep is my blocked mind, the desire to run until I saw the Dome, my heart beating faster than the first day of classes. I wasn’t nervous because of the interview, of the assignment itself, I was nervous because part of the dream was coming true.
And it was just my first week here.

GAO Report

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

The House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services met Wednesday to receive Government Accountability Office Comptroller David M. Walker’s testimony on the report released the day before about the political and military progress in Iraq.

The report by the GAO says only three of 18 benchmarks, set by the Iraqi government, had been fulfilled by August 30. It was released a day earlier, one week before the Congress receives the reports from General Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Photo by CristinaFP.
David Walker reported Wednesday
the achievements of Iraqi government.

GAO Comptroller David M. Walker said the report is “the only independent assessment the Congress will receive.” He gave details about the three benchmarks that have been fulfilled by the Iraqi government: to establish support of the Baghdad Security Plan, to set the joint security stations in neighborhoods across the capital and to ensure that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.

The GAO report says that there has been mixed progress on reducing sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security. “The violence is at about the same level as in February,” Walker said.

Disagreen with the assessment, Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., said that casualties in Iraq have decreased, with attacks going down from 1,350 per month by October 2006, to 250 per month today. “I want you to tell me if the GAO report still sustains that the benchmark for reducing sectarian violence has not been met,” Saxton said.

Walker assessed that the data referring to the decline of sectarian violence in certain areas of the country have been gathered with a methodology that the GAO is not comfortable with. “I’m not saying it is right or wrong, I’m saying that we are not comfortable with the methodology,” he said.

The GAO comptroller didn’t explain the methodology his agency or the military forces use to gather data on sectarian violence. He agreed the military have a better perception because they are “on the ground,” but insisted that he is now wondering if discussing what part of the violence in Iraq is sectarian is actually relevant to the political progress in Iraq.

The objectives of the benchmarks set by the Iraqi government are to evaluate the political and military progress the administration is making and how it affects the Iraqi people’s daily life.

Walker has no doubt that some progress has been made in areas of Iraq like Al-Anbar. But he pointed out that this town has 15 percent of the population of Baghdad, with a Sunny majority, and that there were no signs of Al-Qaida activity. He recommended thinking “why this progress was made, whether it is sustainable and can be applied to other areas.”

“It is important to remember that these 18 measures of progress in Iraq did not originate with Congress. In almost all cases, it was Prime Minister Maliki and his government who designated them as important steps to take,” said Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

Saxton said he finds “interesting” that the Congress did not set deadlines for any of the benchmarks. “If the existing, congressionally mandated yardsticks cannot reflect the positive gains, we must really start to question the value of these benchmarks,” he said.

Walker mentioned the real objective of the benchmarks requires paying attention about facts like safety in the streets or access to water and electricity on a regular basis, replying Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., as he brought up his concern about how realistic and fair the benchmarks are.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., said the report was “devastating about the readiness””of the Iraqi government and asked Walker “how do we move forward now.”

“We have to do what Congress asks us to do. This is time to reassess our goals and objectives, as well as the functions and roles the Iraqi can do. I will be happy to work with the congress on this,” Walker said.