George W. Bush/lies

Overview

This page is about lies told by George W. Bush during his tenure as president.

Specifics

He often says one thing in public, with the cameras on, and disavows it later (sometimes quietly, or sometimes claiming that he never made the original statement).

• Bush promised (citation needed) to fire anyone at the White House who was found to have been involved with the 2002 Valerie Plame leak. In 2005, it was revealed that Karl Rove was in fact the source of the leak. Until Rove is fired, Bush has broken his word. petition to fire Rove at moveon.org
• In an announcement on 2006-01-11, he pushed for return to Luna and Mars [1]; his proposed NASA budget on 2006-02-16 [2] basically pulls the rug out from under any serious effort towards humans visiting Mars [3]
• In his 2006-01-31 State of the Union Address, he called for increased spending on alternatives to oil, specifically clean energy research [4] but reversed this the next day [5].
• He claimed not to condone torture while supporting VP Cheney's efforts to remove torture-restrictive language from an appropriations amendment. Further activity since then suggests that he believes torture to be a necessary tool in the war on terror, despite those earlier statements; see torture during GWB administration.

He lied about his intentions for the US invasion of Iraq, claiming that:

• (a) there was strong evidence of WMDs when it seems clear that there was none and that this was well known to Bush and his closest advisors at the time the claims were made (need more evidence of this)
• (b) that Iraq was connected to the 9/11 attacks:
  • 2003-03-21 Letter to Congress: "The use of armed forces against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
  • 2006-03-20 President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom: "First, just if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said – at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein."