George W. Bush is a god­damn liar. On the one hand, he con­stantly says he hasn’t made up his mind about attack­ing Iraq, but the troop buildup and his lat­est utter­ances that “time is run­ning out” for Sad­dam Hus­sein give the lie to his “states­man­ship.” Bush is deter­mined to go to war, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop him.

“So far I haven’t seen any evi­dence that he has dis­armed,” said Bush. “I’m sick and tired of games and deception.”

Well, you know what, Mr. Pres­i­dent? So are we. We are tired of the soft­shoe act your admin­is­tra­tion is putting on, and the mixed sig­nals given out daily. What kind of sig­nals? In this press brief­ing by Ari Fleis­cher, he offers these “statements”:

Q Can we pre­sume that the Pres­i­dent is very happy that Mr. Blix says there is no smok­ing gun in the search for weapons in Iraq?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the prob­lem with guns that are hid­den is you can’t see their smoke. And so we will still await to see what the inspec­tors find in Iraq and what events in Iraq lead to.

What the hell does that mean? “The prob­lem with guns that are hid­den is you can’t see their smoke”? What kind of koan is that sup­posed to be and how does it give any infor­ma­tion to the press and, by exten­sion, the Amer­i­can peo­ple? Obvi­ously, it’s not sup­posed to give any infor­ma­tion out.

Here’s the rest of the exchange (again, my com­ments in italics):

Q But it wouldn’t be dis­ap­point­ing, would it, if there were no weapons there?

MR. FLEISCHER: We know for a fact that there are weapons there. And so  —  the inspec­tors also went on –

Q What’s the search all about if you know it so fac­tu­ally?
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me cite to you what was  —  what the inspec­tors have said at the United Nations. And this if from their reports. “In order to cre­ate con­fi­dence that it has no more weapons of mass destruc­tion and pro­scribed activ­i­ties related to such weapons, Iraq must present cred­i­ble evi­dence. It can­not just main­tain that it must be deemed to be with­out pro­scribed items so long as their is no evi­dence to the contrary.”

Now, con­tin­u­ing in the words of the inspec­tors, “A per­son accused of ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons may indeed be acquit­ted for lack of evi­dence. But if a state which has used such weapons is to cre­ate con­fi­dence it no longer has any pro­hib­ited weapons, it will need to present solid evi­dence or present remain­ing items for elim­i­na­tion under supervision.”

And they con­tinue, “If evi­dence is not pre­sented which gives us a high degree of assur­ance, there is no way the inspec­tors can close a file by sim­ply invok­ing a pre­cept that Iraq can­not prove the neg­a­tive. In such cases, regret­tably, they must con­clude, as they have done in the past, that the absence of a par­tic­u­lar item is not assured.”

So while they’ve said that there’s no smok­ing gun, they said the absence of it is not assured. And that’s the heart of the prob­lem. The heart of the prob­lem is Iraq is very good at hid­ing things.

And so is North Korea, as evi­denced by the advanced nuclear pro­gram they sup­pos­edly halted in 1994 when the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion agreed to food and energy aid. But now Bush is pre­pared to, I don’t know, take Kim Jong Il’s word for it that they will halt it again if they get more of the same?

Q The heart of the prob­lem is there is a lack of con­fi­dence in any­body speak­ing the truth there, isn’t that –

MR. FLEISCHER: Are you accus­ing the inspec­tors of not speak­ing the truth when they say that it’s not assured

Typ­i­cal Fleis­cher: Attack the ques­tioner rather than answer the question.

Q No, I think they’re speak­ing the truth, and the coun­try won’t accept it.

MR. FLEISCHER: So when they say the absence of the par­tic­u­lar item is not assured, you accept that as the truth. You agree with the Pres­i­dent. I’m very proud.

Q I mean, the point is, wouldn’t you be happy if there were no weapons there?

MR. FLEISCHER: There would be noth­ing that would make the Pres­i­dent hap­pier than there being no weapons in Iraq. And the best way to make cer­tain that there are no weapons in Iraq is for Sad­dam Hus­sein to dis­arm him­self of the weapons he has.

Q The inspec­tors have also said that there’s no dead­line to their inspec­tions. They need time. Prime Min­is­ter Blair has said that they need time and space, that the Jan­u­ary 27^th report that they’ll deliver should not be seen as any kind of dead­line. And Sec­re­tary Pow­ell said that, as well. Is this an indi­ca­tion that the Pres­i­dent is will­ing to let the inspec­tors go at this for a good, long while?

MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, I’ve never heard the Pres­i­dent put a time line on it. [Although he said today he was “sick and tired” of delays. — Ed.] The Pres­i­dent wants the inspec­tors to con­tinue to do exactly what they are doing, which is to do their level best to carry out the search, given the fact that Iraq has thrown up hur­dles and isn’t com­ply­ing in all aspects, con­tin­u­ing with what the inspec­tors have reported in New York.

They cited a num­ber of issues that are real causes for con­cern by the United States gov­ern­ment. And among the things that the inspec­tors them­selves have said are dis­crep­an­cies and incon­sis­ten­cies. These deal with spe­cial muni­tions, ille­gal imports on a rel­a­tively large num­ber of mis­sile engines, con­tra­dic­tions involv­ing the chem­i­cal agent VX, inad­e­quate response by Iraq to pro­vide the names of all per­son­nel who have been involved in weapons of mass destruc­tion pro­grams. Indeed, the inspec­tors found that the list that Iraq pro­vided of who has been involved in the weapons of mass destruc­tion pro­grams left out known names of peo­ple who have been involved in the weapons of mass destruc­tion programs.

The inspec­tors them­selves have con­cluded that Iraq failed to make a seri­ous effort to respond to this infor­ma­tion that the world has required. Inspec­tions that the IAEA con­ducted, which the IAEA, per their rights under the U.N. res­o­lu­tion, asked to be con­ducted in pri­vate with­out any Iraqi min­ders were rejected. The inspec­tions could only take place if Iraqi min­ders were in the room  —  hardly a wel­com­ing envi­ron­ment if any­body has infor­ma­tion that they want to share. And so there were a num­ber of things that were said that still give cause for con­cern in this report.

There’s a lot more, which you read at the link up above, but my favorite mean­ing­less and empty state­ment from Fleis­cher is this:

Q Is there not a con­tra­dic­tion, on the one hand, for the Pres­i­dent to say pub­licly he will have zero tol­er­ance for Iraqi non-compliance, and for the admin­is­tra­tion to say the bur­den is not on the inspec­tors to find things, the bur­den is on Iraq to show what hap­pened to its weapons pro­grams —  and then on the other hand, say, as you just said, that even the inspec­tors say Iraq left out names of sci­en­tists known to be work­ing in the weapons pro­gram, has not accounted for mus­tard gas, other chem­i­cal agents known to be there in the last vio­la­tion? Why doesn’t the Pres­i­dent say, zero tol­er­ance, failed the test?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, this is why I began this by say­ing, tak­ing the broad view about what we learned in New York today. What we learned in New York today gives fur­ther con­cern for peo­ple who want to keep peace, because Iraq has failed to com­ply with the United Nations res­o­lu­tions. The Pres­i­dent has said that he will have zero tol­er­ance for this. The Pres­i­dent has also said that Sad­dam Hus­sein will have to fig­ure out exactly what zero tol­er­ance means and when he means it. (Empha­sis added)

(Open-mouthed gawk­ing…) What? Just what is going on? Does any­one know? It’s like a game, try­ing to fig­ure out what the admin­is­tra­tion is say­ing. A game played with the lives of thou­sands of Iraqis and Amer­i­can GIs in the bal­ance. And the goal posts of this game keep chang­ing. First, Sad­dam was involved in 9/11. Then he was har­bor­ing al Qa’ida. Then he was mak­ing weapons of mass destruc­tion. And now, he’s not pro­vid­ing com­plete infor­ma­tion to weapons inspectors.

As Iraq’s offenses against the world com­mu­nity shrink in sig­nif­i­cance, Bush’s rhetoric heats up. At this point, only a bravura per­for­mance in which the United States offers incon­tro­vert­ible proof that Iraq is man­u­fac­tur­ing WMD and poses an threat to world order, alá Adlai Steven­son in 1962, would be enough to get France and Rus­sia on board. Chief inspec­tor Hans Blix has asked for more time, and even Britain has hinted that inspec­tions should be given more time to work. (By the way, be sure to check out George Paine’s entry over at War Blog­ging. Excel­lent plan for a work­able sanc­tions regime.)

To the Amer­i­can peo­ple, North Korea seems the greater threat, yet because it has no oil or any­thing else that mat­ters to him and his cronies, Bush treats it with kid gloves and even floats the idea of cut­ting a deal to put the breaks on a nuclear pro­gram that is years ahead of any­thing Iraq might be capa­ble of. Yet, he con­stantly boxes Sad­dam Hus­sein into a cor­ner, set­ting him up to fail.

This is a bit of a rant, true, but yes­ter­day was just one of those days when the hypocrisy of those in power over the Amer­i­can peo­ple boiled over. Despite the wishes of a sub­stan­tial minor­ity in this coun­try — and while the rest of the world that calls for more time — this admin­is­tra­tion seems ready to flout the public’s wishes.

In a pos­si­ble check on Bush, his num­bers have dropped five points, from 63 per­cent to 58 per­cent, in a week — although the slip is within the poll’s mar­gin of error of three points. Still, the num­bers are at their low­est since 9/11. A poll from the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor and TIPP shows that only 40 per­cent of Amer­i­cans think it is “very impor­tant” to tackle Iraq within six months, down from 47 per­cent in Decem­ber. And while a major­ity con­tinue to see Sad­dam as a threat, the num­ber has fallen to its low­est point in five months. Almost 40 per­cent don’t believe he poses an imme­di­ate threat to the coun­try. (The Monitor/TIPP poll was con­ducted Jan. 6 – 11, with 903 respon­dents with a mar­gin of error of 3.3 points.)

Look, I’m not say­ing Sad­dam isn’t some­one we need to deal with, but for God’s sake — or at least the lives of inno­cent Iraqis and Amer­i­can troops — let the inspec­tors do their jobs before killing thou­sands, desta­bi­liz­ing a region and alien­at­ing allies. Despite the dubi­ous method of his rise to power, Bush should remem­ber we live in a democ­racy, still, and going to war is not the pre­rog­a­tive of one man. The voices of the peo­ple of the United States need to be in this debate — all of them, not just those of the hawks and polit­i­cal supporters.