The conventional wisdom has it that many lies have been told concerning the justifications for the war in Iraq. The wisdom is partly true. There's been much prevaricating on this question, but the dishonesty has been an exclusive property of the administration's critics.
Norman Podhoretz has an excellent essay in
Commentary which lays the whole story on the table in all of its ugliness. One cannot read this column without feeling a combination of disgust and astonishment at the way the truth has been distorted and mangled in the attempt to discredit George Bush. The column is a bit too long to post here in its entirety, but it opens with these words:
Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.
What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.
Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.
Podhoretz's account is a "must-read" essay destined to be one of those pieces which gets quoted over and over as those who care about truth seek to undo the immense damage done by those for whom truth is only important when it happens to be on their side.