Bush Aide Admits Manipulating Opinion on Iraq

Bush Aide Admits Manipulating Opinion On Iraq
Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2008Source: Guardian
Now he tells us: George Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan has admitted that the Iraq war was "unnecessary" and a "strategic blunder" that was sold to the American people through manipulative propaganda campaign.McClellan's memoirs are described as "surprisingly scathing". He was a loyal press secretary until April 2006, but has now spilled the beans on how the war was sold to the American people.
The memoirs are due to be published on Monday, but the website Politico.com and the Washington Post have got hold of early copies.
McClellan's admissions include:
*Bush relied on propaganda "in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option".* The administration was not "open and forthright on Iraq".* On the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative and the subsequent coverup, "I allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood".* The press were too deferential to the White House on Iraq* Steve Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, offered to resign over the erroneous claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium.* "The Iraq war was not necessary"