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From the war on Iraq to class war at home
Bush's web of lies

August 1, 2003 | Page 1

GEORGE W. BUSH and his pals are up to their necks in lies. And new ones seem to spew out of their mouths every day.

The administration is facing its worst crisis since September 11 because the U.S. mainstream media finally focused on what had been a scandal in the rest of the world for months--the false claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon.

But there are plenty more lies where that came from. Even as he was wheeled out to deflect attention from the Niger story, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz repeated another whopper on a weekend news show--the totally discredited claim that Iraq was connected to al-Qaeda and the September 11 hijackings.

Of course, this is the same man who now claims that "murky intelligence" is to be expected. "If you wait until the terrorism picture is clear," Wolfowitz snarled, "you're going to wait until after something terrible has happened." In other words, shoot first and ask questions later--or better yet, never.

The biggest lie of all is that Washington ever cared about "liberating" Iraq's people. Every day brings reports of new atrocities--like the massacre of unarmed civilians last weekend as U.S. soldiers carried out another raid in the Pentagon's Wild West manhunt for Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, the basic infrastructure of Iraq--electricity, sewage and sanitation and so on--remains a shambles. "The Americans have done nothing for us," one Iraqi told the Washington Post. "What's the difference between them and Saddam? We still have looters, killing and unemployment. We can't bear this situation anymore."

Then there are the lies that the Bush administration spouts to justify its war on working people at home. Like the lie that massive tax cuts for the rich will "trickle down" to benefit workers. Or the lie that the bipartisan "compromise" on a Medicare prescription drug benefit will provide any real help for ordinary seniors.

Or the lie that economic good times are just around the corner. Try telling that to Serge Kher, who lost his job as the manager of a car dealership in Virginia Beach, Va., in March. After sending out 107 resumes, the 48-year-old father of four has had only one interview. "I'm starting to go crazy," he told a reporter last week. "There are days when I feel that I'm worthless."

To the Bush gang--and in fact, to the whole political establishment in Washington--ordinary people like Kher don't matter, whether they live in Iraq or here in the U.S. That's why we have to keep exposing Bush's web of lies--and organize a movement to stand up to Washington's attacks.

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