Netanyahu Lied About Iraq’s WMDs, Now He’s Saying the Same Things About Iran

To See President Biden's 5 Best Jokes At The White House Correspondents Dinner visit The Daily.

Netanyahu has been saying the same things about Iran that he incorrectly said about Iraq in 2002 as he sold the Iraq war to the U.S. Congress. Republicans are trying to place Netanyahu in charge of U.S. foreign policy with Iran, which is the foreign policy equivalent of making Bush the president again.

In 2012, Juan Cole went back to 2002 to point out that Netanyahu was saying the same inaccurate fear-mongering stuff about Iran that he said about Iraq.

Here’s what Netanyahu was saying then:

“There is no question whatsoever that Saddam was seeking nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said, misleading Congress in 2002. He claimed Iraq had Centrifuges “the size of washing machines” to produce the A-bomb. And as Cole wrote, “He said that Israeli intelligence reported to him that Russian scientists and North Korea were on site and actively aiding this phantom nuclear weapons program.”

Sound familiar? Yeah, more deliberately distorted intelligence and rumor mongering and building a media case based on bread crumbs left by the frightened and the disingenuous.

A little fact checking from Juan Cole (who gave a h/t to Washington Blog):

There was no Iraqi nuclear weapons program in 2002; it was dismantled in the early 1990s by United Nations inspectors. There were none of the chemical or biological weapons Netanyahu spoke of. No Russians. No North Koreans. Bupkes.

Netanyahu also warned that Iraq would give nuclear warheads (which it did not have) to “terrorist groups.”

He also argued that no inspections could possibly find “mobile weapons sites” (which are impossible), implying that invasion and occupation was the only course open.

Netanyahu proved that neither he nor the Israeli intelligence organization, Mossad, had the slightest actual intelligence on Iraq, and that neither should be trusted to provide such intelligence to the US. Clearly, some right wing Israeli leaders always want the US entangled in regional wars in the Middle East, insofar as they are seeking US support in a hostile region. They therefore habitually exaggerate the dangers, and are little more than bullsh*t artists.

Republicans in Congress are trying to equate PM Benjamin Netanyahu with Israel, but that is like saying that George W Bush is the United States. So if you disagree with Bush, you disagree with America. Well, that’s just it. Republicans often maintain the position that to disagree with them is to hate an entire country. But they do not own the U.S. and they do not own Israel.

Netanyahu is no more Israel than Bush is the United States. In fact, Bush and Netanyahu are the same slice of the pie in these two separate countries.

And that’s exactly why Republicans went around the Democratic President in order to invite Netanyahu to sell his fear-mongering foreign policy to Congress while the President is trying to negotiate nuclear disarming with Iran. This is like Bush being in charge of our foreign policy again.

Republicans are calling Democrats “anti-patriotic” because some of them are threatening not to attend Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. In other words, Republicans think that refusing to listen to someone who has a history of lying and distorting the facts means Democrats don’t love this country. LOL. Republicans would like Dick Cheney to speak to Congress about Iran, but that can’t be done, so they have invited Israel’s Bush/Cheney to push U.S. foreign policy into Bush/Cheney WMD lies based violence.

Netanyahu is not Israel. He is the Bush Cheney arm of Israel. He does not represent even the best interests of Israel, much as Bush Cheney did not represent the best interests of the average American.

Netanyahu was full of WMD lies in 2002 and he is still full of them now. He is not a credible witness or expert. He has been discredited. This is like inviting Brian Williams to lecture about journalistic integrity, only the entire world will be impacted by his speech.

Netanyahu can’t be trusted as a source of information, so what is the point of having him speak to Congress? The point is to humiliate the U.S. president and to hijack U.S. foreign policy from the executive office into the halls of Congress now that Republicans control Congress.

Republicans listened to Netanyahu in 2002 and that’s how we ended up invading Iraq on a lie. Now they want to hand the reins over to him again, subverting the will of the people and two national elections with no hanging chads.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.