Bush Lied. And Knew It. Updated. 1

From On the Media:

In 2002, a handful of lawmakers were privy to classified intel about Iraqi WMD. Behind closed doors, there was uncertainty. But in public, Bush officials told a different story. Senator Dick Durbin explains why he didn’t blow the whistle when it might have made a difference.

Go to the website or listen to the report here. I will not summarize it; it’s only 10 minutes long and deserves your full attention.

I’ll post a link to the transcript when it becomes available tomorrow.

Here’s the transcript.

And here’s the key quotation:

DICK DURBIN: You may have overstated it, but not by much. I remember the debate on the aluminum tubes. I would sit there and listen – this has all been declassified, now I can talk about it – I would sit there and listen to the Department of Energy in full-throated debate with the Department of Defense over whether these aluminum tubes were going to be used for nuclear weapons.

And the Department of Energy would say, no, it’s the wrong kind of aluminum tube. We think it’s just as likely it’s going for something else. Department of Defense – no, we think it’s nuclear.

You’d walk out of the room and you’d think, well, there’s a real difference of opinion here. You’d walk into the corridor and hear announcements from the White House – be prepared, mushroom-shaped clouds, nuclear disaster. And I’m thinking to myself, if they are so uncertain in the confines of this room, how can they say to the American people there is certainty here in terms of the threat?