Bush's Lies This Week

Bush said he didn't know how the Iraqi military was disbanded, but letters from Paul Bremer show he knew in advance it would happen.

Bush said on Monday: "Do you realize that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that cut greenhouse gases last year?" But as the Washington Post points out, even the White House can't substantiate that.

"[Bush] believes success is being achieved in Iraq and told the Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, upon arrival on Tuesday night that 'we're kicking ass'." But of course the GAO report says otherwise.

Petraeus "told the Australian that there had been a 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killing since last year". Daily Kos points out, "In all of 2006, there were 16,564 reported (emphasis on reported) civilian deaths, and in the first eight months of 2007, there has been 14,732 deaths. So, civilian deaths are down about 11%...but there are four months left in the year. Or was Gen. Petraeus comparing the same time periods from last year and this year? If that's the case, in the first 8 months of 2006, there were 8,490 civilian deaths versus the 14,732 in the first 8 months of 2007, which is an increase of nearly 75%. Is Gen. Petraeus using Karl Rove's math?"

The LA TImes has a long article on this, here's just one bit: "According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year."

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) says "We’re clearly seeing some major improvements. Clearly in the Anbar Province, we’ve seen significant improvement. We were able to walk the streets of Fallujah. Sectarian deaths are down." But Wolf Blitzer throws facts back at him. "You say that the number of casualties is going down. But we took a closer look — and The Los Angeles Times did as well — citing Iraqi Health Ministry numbers. In June, it was 1,227 civilian deaths in Iraq. In July, it went up to 1,753 civilian deaths in Iraq. And in August, the month that just ended, 1,773 civilian deaths in Iraq. Those numbers are going in the wrong direction." Daily Kos has more on lies about Anbar. Cenk Uygur calls the surge completely useless, "That's because our strategy in the Anbar province has NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to do with the surge. It doesn't involve more U.S. troops. It involves less U.S. troops!"

John Kerry calls the escalation a "tragic failure".


Here's advanced warning on some budget lies. "There will be lots of celebrating in Washington next month when the Treasury announces that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2007, which ends September 30, will have dropped to a mere $158 billion, give or take a few bucks." Apparently if you use real accounting, "the real federal deficit for the current fiscal year is more than 2-1/2 times the stated deficit."