Uh. Well. Yeah. The Facts We Had Were Wrong. Yeah. I Know.

Very interesting things today that came out... on a Friday when there will be no news but Reagan news. BUT, remember that report that the Bush Administration was touting about how international terrorism had decreased? Remember how all the democrats and other opposition said that this report was nonsense and that it didn't even include events in Iraq, etc... "The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said. I would love to see some heads roll and extreme uncomfortableness mixed with public apology and maybe a lynching or two.

The problem is that Bush already used these BS facts during many speeches giving the uninformed public the everpresent idea that Bush has stymied terrorism worldwide. Ironic how all of his speeches tout the amount of terrorism worldwide and use that as reasons for going to war and 'staying the course.' I remember people questioning this report when it came out, yet there saying they started looking at it again in May. Apparently (and I'm still laughing) only part of 2003 was taken into account. What's really insulting is that they make Colin Powell do the "oops" statements when it wasn't his fault.

Instead, both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time. The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said...

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the errors were partly the result of new data collection procedures. "I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can," he said.

"Errors crept in that frankly we did not catch here," Powell said.

Boucher said the errors began to become apparent in early May. "We got phone calls from people who were going through our report and who said to themselves, as we should have said to ourselves: 'This doesn't feel right. This doesn't look right.' And who started asking us questions," he said.

One of Bush's major foreign policy claims is that his post-Sept. 11 strategy to counter terror was showing success.

So, if Kerry is being painted as a flip-flopper, Bush should be tarred and feathered as a absolute liar and misleader.


In other news, but just as important, a report is coming out about 50,000 illnesses of former military personnel during the first Iraq war. After over a decade of complaints by veterans claiming severe illnesses dubbed "Gulf War Syndrome," Government in Britain and the U.S. are starting to acknowledge it. The fishy thing here is that they are completely laying the blame on Iraq saying that they destroyed WMD and a plume could have contaminated soldiers. BUT! The Government is not responsible and they don't actually think there is a "symdrome," so to speak. I would love to find out when they actually knew all of this, and why they waited over ten years to admit to this, let alone inform the exposed. Let's see... who was involved in this? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Stormin' "Where Am I" Norman, etc.