Bush busted:
Think of it. George W. Bush opens his mouth last night, and every two minutes and fifteen seconds that he is talking something very wrong comes out of his mouth. At this point, I don't care whether he does not know that A.Q. Khan has not been "brought to justice" but has been pardoned by Pervez Musharraf, or whether he knows but is confident the press won't call him on it:
Seventy-five percent of known Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice. [1. What Bush means is that 75% of known Al Qaeda leaders as of September 10, 2001 have been accounted for. But we know that Al Qaeda has new leaders--so this is simply false.]
Ten million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan in the upcoming presidential election. [2. It's not a good thing when you have more registered voters than you have people of voting age in the country.]
In Iraq, we saw a threat, and we realized that after September the 11th, we must take threats seriously, before they fully materialize. Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell. America and the world are safer for it. [3. Middle East leaders disagree, and say that the world is definitely not safer as a result of Bush's invasion of Iraq.]
The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice. [4. A.Q. Khan is not in jail. In what sense has he been "brought to justice"?]
That's kind of a pre-September 10th mentality, the hope that somehow resolutions and failed inspections would make this world a more peaceful place. [5. But we now know that the inspections in Iraq were remarkably successful.]
LEHRER: What about Senator Kerry's point, the comparison he drew between the priorities of going after Osama bin Laden and going after Saddam Hussein?
BUSH: Jim, we've got the capability of doing both. [6. But we don't--as we learned at Tora Bora.]
Of course we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean bin Laden. He's isolated. Seventy-five percent of his people have been brought to justice. [7. Once again, nobody but Bush believes that Al Qaeda has been scotched.] The killer -- the mastermind of the September 11th attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is in prison.
What my opponent wants you to forget is that he voted to authorize the use of force and now says it's the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. [8. Grants of power do not give the grantee the right to be stupid in using the power.]
I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap. [9. Bush has just said he would rather have his tax cuts for the rich than spend money on homeland security.]
And that's what we're doing. We've got 100,000 [Iraqis] trained now, [10. But we don't have 100,000 trained now.]
My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war.... What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland? [11. President Kwasniewski says that he was taken for a ride by Bush with Bush's false claims about WMDs.]
My opponent just said something amazing. He said Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq as an excuse to spread hatred for America. [12. That's not amazing: that's true. The entire strategy of the War on Terror is--or should be--to unite moderate Muslims with us against Al Qaeda. The attack on Iraq has made that next to impossible.]
There are 100,000 troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol. [13. Once again, Bush shouldn't be saying this. It isn't true.]
But the enemy attacked us, Jim, [14. Iraq, however, did not attack us.]
And secondly, to think that another round of resolutions would have caused Saddam Hussein to disarm, [15. After he says "disarm", Bush realizes he's made a mistake and shifts to "disclose".]
We worked very closely with the foreign ministers of France, [16. Once again, Bush shouldn't be saying this: he hasn't been working closely with France.]
I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network. [17. That's not what Kerry said: he said nuclear proliferation--which Bush has not taken to be a highest priority problem.]
I'll tell you another way to help protect America in the long run is to continue with missile defenses. And we've got a robust research and development program that has been ongoing during my administration. We'll be implementing a missile-defense system relatively quickly. [18. He shouldn't be saying this: the system he's about to deploy isn't tested. There's no reason to think it will work.]
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