Mendacity

The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, two non-profit journalism organizations, jointly conducted a study of how the Bush Administration orchestrated its campaign for the invasion of Iraq based on claims of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Quaeda, or both. The study finds that the administration - primarily through public statements by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - essentially lied to the American people on at least 935 separate occasions. The study concludes that "the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."