Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq

by NAVROC Command | May 28, 2008 at 03:29 am | 44 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and President Bush announce that Mr. McClellan is resigning his position on the South Lawn Wednesday, April 19, 2006. "One of these days he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the Press Secretary," said the President. "And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done." White House photo by Eric Draper.

These allegations coming from President Bush's former press secretary, a man who served him for a decade, are truly shocking. It is not the allegations themselves that are shocking - they merely confirm what most Americans have come to believe anyway - it is the fact that the man making them was the very person delivering the "political propoaganda campaign" to the media. It's hard to say what effect this might have on the current presidential campaign, but whatever legitimacy George W. Bush had left as US president is now likely completely gone. With seven months left in his term, and rumors that the administration intends to attack Iran before the end of the year, the rest of 2008 could bring a very unpleasant reality.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative's name.

The book, coming from a man who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, is certain to give fuel to critics of the administration, and McClellan has harsh words for many of his past colleagues. He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints.