Open Thread - Caught In A Lie Edition

by Steve

Sometimes, Bush’s lies catch up with him. In a new book that is out Tuesday, author Robert Draper states that Bush claims he never approved or was told about plans to disband the Iraqi army, and instead wanted it kept intact. Bush’s attempt to blame Paul Bremer for one of the biggest mistakes of the post-invasion period shouldn’t surprise anyone, since Bush never accepts responsibility for his mistakes.

Unfortunately for Bush, Paul Bremer wasn’t going to take this one lying down.

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.”

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents. In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

Oops.

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