By Michelangelo Signorile

Lies on Top
With evidence of no evidence, where’s the rage?

Unable to find Saddam’s supposed African-imported uranium—or defend George W. Bush’s claims that it even existed—the White House last week decided it was time to go nuclear itself. Starting to sweat as the mere thought that the media is finally, if tepidly, asking questions, the Bushies sent out talking points to House Republicans titled, "Why Saddam Hussein Was a Grave and Gathering Danger."

Our very own CIA—the one that Bush claims gives him "darn good intelligence"—did, after all, confirm that it was Saddam’s voice on an audiotape that surfaced a few weeks ago. Some person or group loyal to Saddam may be orchestrating the brutal attacks on American soldiers that have turned Iraq into the quagmire and "guerrilla war" (in the words of new commander in Iraq, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid) that many of us feared and warned against, whether or not Saddam is directly involved.

Last week the irascible Iraqi apparently even sent out another tape, calling Bush and Tony Blair "liars." (Like a stopped clock, even an underground despot is right twice a day.) He seems to be alive and well, living in an undisclosed location—just like Dick Cheney.

Our elusive vice president, meanwhile, gearing up for incinerating White House enemies trying to make hay of the lies that brought us to invade another country, has hauled out the administration’s very own nuke to end all nukes, its personal mother of all bombs: Mary Matalin.

"Vice President Cheney told House Republicans on Wednesday," the Washington Post reported last week, regarding the uranium scandal, "that Mary Matalin, who has been a Republican National Committee consultant since leaving his staff in January, is helping shape communications strategy. Cheney made the remark as he urged a more energetic defense of the president."

Part of the White House’s nuclear strategy seems to be to use whatever it can—including xenophobia and homophobia—to tar the media. After ABC News reporter Jeffrey Kofman reported on sinking troop morale in Baghdad, someone in the White House apparently contacted the right-wing cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to inform him that the reporter was both Canadian and openly gay, as least as Drudge later told the Washington Post’s soon-departing gossipist, Lloyd Grove. (On his site at the time, however, Drudge dutifully ran a link to the Advocate, which discussed Kofman’s homosexuality, under the link to his ABC News story about low troop morale, without explaining that the White House had put him up to it.)

Even sleazy tactics and Mary Matalin’s radioactive mouth may not be able to contain this debacle. Cheney may be concerned about the president, but his own head is on the block as well. Any investigation—and there must be an independent commission to finally investigate these lies, despite the Republicans’ stalling tactics—will focus on the secretive, power-mongering Cheney and his zeal to find intelligence that didn’t exist. He may or may not be the person who put the now infamous 16 words into Bush’s speech, but he was pretty damned desperate to make those words ring with truth—no matter how false they may have been. It was Cheney who sent former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to Niger in the first place, to get confirmation on obscure reports that the African country had sold uranium to Iraq. Wilson found it was all bogus, and eventually got this scandal up and running the week before last when he wrote a New York Times op-ed questioning why the State of the Union address included the claim.

You do have to wonder how these guys could bungle things in such a big way. The fact that they thought we’d all accept the excuse that they were just quoting the British—who were urged by the CIA that the intelligence on this was bad—is pretty mind-boggling. Is it all due to arrogance, with the Bushies starting to believe the lazy media’s own claims that this is such a "disciplined," "tightly wound," "on-message" crew? Why would the administration go to such lengths, inserting a dubious line in a speech, when it already had the American people wrapped around its fingers? After all, our catatonic, fear-instilled public—as well as most Democrats in Congress—had been manipulated since 9/11 and was ready and willing to wage war based on much less evidence than the sale of the uranium. There seemed to be no reason to pump up the intelligence—unless, of course, the administration’s entire case for war was in danger of falling down like a house of (most-wanted) cards.

"A review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and former administration officials and intelligence analysts, suggests that between Oct. 7, when the president made a speech laying out the case for military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he made his State of the Union address, almost all the other evidence [of a nuclear program] had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq," the Washington Post also reported last week. "By Jan. 28, in fact, the intelligence report concerning Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa—although now almost entirely disproved—was the only publicly unchallenged element of the administration’s case that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. That may explain why the administration strived to keep the information in the speech and attribute it to the British, even though it had been challenged earlier by the CIA."

Sure, there was still the alleged chemical and biological weapons, but so far they’ve been as imaginary as the uranium, with Colin Powell’s claims of bio labs on wheels turning out to be mobile hydrogen balloon factories and other benign trailers. It was outrageous that Bush, during his appearance with Tony Blair last week in which he tried to deflect on the nuclear issue, got away with implying that Saddam recently "possessed" chemical weapons and biological weapons, when we’ve not found anything of the sort. The administration had to know just how shaky Powell’s evidence was as well, since most of it was coming from former Iraqi officials who stood to gain a lot in ousting Saddam Hussein. The hyped-up al Qaeda/Saddam connection, meanwhile, has not materialized either.

Confirming everything that so many critics said while speaking out during the rush to war—in this country, at the United Nations and around the world—it’s becoming increasingly clear we invaded a country based on very little or nothing at all. It would be satisfying to play the "I told you so" game, but looking at the horrific fact that thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed, and American service people are being attacked and murdered continually, the only response now is to become completely enraged with the Bushies. If this doesn’t wake up the slumbering public—and force the Democrats to go to the mat, beyond a few stage-crafted performances—what will?