Mary Mostert
Bush and WMD vs Kennedy and Chappaquiddick - - Who is the liar?
By Mary Mostert
Last week, on the same day that the United Nations surprised the world by voting unanimously for the Bush Administration’s Iraqi Resolution, Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts issued a lengthy statement in which he claimed Bush “trumped up reasons for going to war.”
Kennedy claimed in his statement that “Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one. ” This makes George W. Bush somehow responsible for the terrorists currently pouring across the border of Syria to kill Americans.
Kennedy went on to say, “The trumped up reasons for going to war have collapsed. All the Administration's rationalizations as we prepared to go to war now stand revealed as ‘double-talk.’ The American people were told Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. He was not. We were told he had stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction. He did not. We were told he was involved in 9/11. He was not. We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from Al Qaeda. It was not. We were told our soldiers would be viewed as liberators. They are not. We were told Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction. It cannot. We were told the war would make America safer. It has not. “Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.”
Really? How can we tell who is lying — Bush or Kennedy? Thanks to modern technology, we now have available to us not only the public statements the President, but public statements made by the Senator about leaving the scene of the accident on Chappaquiddick Island 34 years ago leaving Mary Jo Kopechne dead or dying at the bottom of a pond in his car.
First, let’s consider what Kennedy claims the President said. Did Bush really say that “Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons,” had “stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction,” and was “involved in 9/11?” And, what was it that Kennedy said in various statements about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne? Perhaps we can find some clues about who is the liar. In his State of the Union speech of January 28, 2003 the President said of Saddam Hussein, “Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons — not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.”
Bush claimed, based on what the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. Intelligence had said that he “PURSUED” not that he “STOCKPILED” weapons of mass destruction. As recently as 1999 the UN reported, the President said, “Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.” Perhaps Sen. Kennedy could tell us where it is?
The President also mentioned that “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.” The President said Saddam had A DESIGN for a nuclear weapon. Kennedy claimed Bush said the “American people were told Saddam Hussein was BUILDING nuclear weapons.” Who is not telling the truth?
Let’s now compare Ted Kennedy’s own statement about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne with Ted Kennedy’s own statement about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Nine hours after her death, Ted Kennedy gave his first statement to the police. In that statement Kennedy said, he “repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. "I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the back seat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period of time and then going back to my hotel room.”
In that account, no mention was made of telling others about the accident and urging them NOT to call the police. A week later, in a nationwide broadcast from his father’s home defending his actions Kennedy claimed he walked back to the party and got his cousin, Joe Gargan and a friend, Paul Markham, both lawyers, to help find her body while insisting the two lawyers not tell anyone else, such as Fire Captain Foster Silva who lived less than 100 yards from the cottage where the six men and six women were partying. Kennedy then had Gargan and Markham drive him to the ferry, which had closed for the night. He jumped into the water, swam back to his hotel and went to sleep. The next day Kennedy called, not the police, but his personal lawyer and at the lawyer’s insistence, Kennedy belatedly called the Martha’s Vineyard police.
I wouldn’t ordinarily bring up an event that occurred 34 years ago, except the issue here is who is the liar? Who is the more believable of two politicians who are on the opposite side of an issue critical to the lives of Americans?
I think their records speak for themselves.
© Mary Mostert
Last week, on the same day that the United Nations surprised the world by voting unanimously for the Bush Administration’s Iraqi Resolution, Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts issued a lengthy statement in which he claimed Bush “trumped up reasons for going to war.”
Kennedy claimed in his statement that “Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one. ” This makes George W. Bush somehow responsible for the terrorists currently pouring across the border of Syria to kill Americans.
Kennedy went on to say, “The trumped up reasons for going to war have collapsed. All the Administration's rationalizations as we prepared to go to war now stand revealed as ‘double-talk.’ The American people were told Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. He was not. We were told he had stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction. He did not. We were told he was involved in 9/11. He was not. We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from Al Qaeda. It was not. We were told our soldiers would be viewed as liberators. They are not. We were told Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction. It cannot. We were told the war would make America safer. It has not. “Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.”
Really? How can we tell who is lying — Bush or Kennedy? Thanks to modern technology, we now have available to us not only the public statements the President, but public statements made by the Senator about leaving the scene of the accident on Chappaquiddick Island 34 years ago leaving Mary Jo Kopechne dead or dying at the bottom of a pond in his car.
First, let’s consider what Kennedy claims the President said. Did Bush really say that “Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons,” had “stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction,” and was “involved in 9/11?” And, what was it that Kennedy said in various statements about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne? Perhaps we can find some clues about who is the liar. In his State of the Union speech of January 28, 2003 the President said of Saddam Hussein, “Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons — not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.”
Bush claimed, based on what the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. Intelligence had said that he “PURSUED” not that he “STOCKPILED” weapons of mass destruction. As recently as 1999 the UN reported, the President said, “Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.” Perhaps Sen. Kennedy could tell us where it is?
The President also mentioned that “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.” The President said Saddam had A DESIGN for a nuclear weapon. Kennedy claimed Bush said the “American people were told Saddam Hussein was BUILDING nuclear weapons.” Who is not telling the truth?
Let’s now compare Ted Kennedy’s own statement about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne with Ted Kennedy’s own statement about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Nine hours after her death, Ted Kennedy gave his first statement to the police. In that statement Kennedy said, he “repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. "I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the back seat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period of time and then going back to my hotel room.”
In that account, no mention was made of telling others about the accident and urging them NOT to call the police. A week later, in a nationwide broadcast from his father’s home defending his actions Kennedy claimed he walked back to the party and got his cousin, Joe Gargan and a friend, Paul Markham, both lawyers, to help find her body while insisting the two lawyers not tell anyone else, such as Fire Captain Foster Silva who lived less than 100 yards from the cottage where the six men and six women were partying. Kennedy then had Gargan and Markham drive him to the ferry, which had closed for the night. He jumped into the water, swam back to his hotel and went to sleep. The next day Kennedy called, not the police, but his personal lawyer and at the lawyer’s insistence, Kennedy belatedly called the Martha’s Vineyard police.
I wouldn’t ordinarily bring up an event that occurred 34 years ago, except the issue here is who is the liar? Who is the more believable of two politicians who are on the opposite side of an issue critical to the lives of Americans?
I think their records speak for themselves.
© Mary Mostert
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