| Top Bushisms in the Category of: Certainty & Urgency Over Iraq & WMD | |
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| 1. | "That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected, revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue. The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 2. | "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 3. | "Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahedeen" -- his nuclear holy warriors." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 [AUDIO] | ||
| 4. | "Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 5. | "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 6. | "Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 [AUDIO] | ||
| 7. | "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 8. | "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological
or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance
with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving
any fingerprints." - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 |
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| 9. | "If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully, we will act with the full power of the United States military, we will act with allies at our side, and we will prevail. - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 10. | "Some have argued we should wait -- and that is an option. In my view, it is the riskiest of all options -- because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I am convinced that is a hope against all evidence. - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 11. | "The attacks of September 11 showed our country that vast oceans no longer protect us from danger. Before that tragic date, we had only hints of al Qaeda's plans and designs. Today in Iraq, we see a threat whose outlines are far more clearly defined, and whose consequences could be far more deadly. Saddam Hussein's actions have put us on notice, and there is no refuge from our responsibilities. - George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002 | ||
| 12. | "You see, given that choice whether to trust the word of a madman, a man who had used chemical weapons on his own people, or to defend our country, I will choose to defend America every time." - George W. Bush | ||
| 13. | "The best way to protect us is to stay on the offensive and to find terrorists before they try to harm us again. And they will. - George W. Bush, Nashua, NH, Mar. 25, 2004 | ||
| 14. | QUESTION: "Mr. President, in his speech to Congress,
the Prime Minister opened the door to the possibility that you may be proved
wrong about the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." THE PRESIDENT: "Yeah." QUESTION: "Do you agree, and does it matter whether or not you find these weapons?" THE PRESIDENT: "Well, you might ask the Prime Minister that. We won't be proven wrong. I believe that we will find the truth. And the truth is, he was developing a program for weapons of mass destruction. Now, you say, why didn't it happen all of a sudden? Well, there was a lot of chaos in the country, one. Two, Saddam Hussein has spent over a decade hiding weapons and hiding materials. Three, we're getting -- we're just beginning to get some cooperation from some of the high-level officials in that administration or that regime. But we will bring the weapons and, of course -- we will bring the information forward on the weapons when they find them. And that will end up -- end all this speculation. I understand there has been a lot of speculation over in Great Britain, we've got a little bit of it here, about whether or not the -- whether or not the actions were based upon valid information. We can debate that all day long, until the truth shows up. And that's what's going to happen. And we based our decisions on good, sound intelligence. And the -- our people are going to find out the truth, and the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind." - George W. Bush, July 17, 2003 |
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| 15. | QUESTION: "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq
and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?" DUBYA: "Hmmm, uhh, hah -- ummm -- I, the answer is -- I haven't really thought of it that way, heh, heh. Heh. Here's how I think of it. Ummm -- heh heh. First I've heard of that, by the way, I, ah -- uhh -- the, uhh -- I, I guess I'm more of a practical fella. Uhh. I vowed after September the 11th that I would do everything I could to protect the American people. And, uhh -- my attitude, of course, was affected by the attacks. I knew we were at a war. I knew that the enemy, obviously, had to be sophisticated, and lethal, to fly hijacked airplanes, uhh, into -- facilities that would, we would, killing thousands of people, innocent people, doin' nothing, just sittin' there goin' to work." - George W. Bush, Cleveland, Ohio, Mar. 20, 2006 -- The White House transcript is considerably more generous in its accounting of this exchange, which is peppered with false starts, snickers, and umms. I reckon this wasn't the sort of question he was expecting, since he never actually answered it, even after the 73 seconds that expired here. |
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