Date: Saturday, 21 June 2025
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/are-trumps-statements-about-irans
https://theduran.com/are-trumps-statements-about-irans-imminent-nuclear-threat
Are Trump’s statements about Iran’s imminent nuclear threat any more trustworthy than GW Bush’s were about the imminence of Iraq’s nuclear threat?
21 June 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
In retrospect, no reasonable and well-informed person denies or even questions that George W. Bush lied America into invading Iraq in 2003; so, we’ll start here with the evidences on that matter, in order to compare that invasion with the one that Trump says he might do:
Bush kicked off his campaign to destroy Iraq based on lies, in his 7 September 2002 press conference with his lap-dog Tony Blair the leader of England, when Bush asserted and Blair seconded his allegation, that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had just come out with a new report saying that Iraq was only six months away from having a nuclear weapon, and this assertion made the front page of the New York Times on the following day, which stenographically reported the President’s lie without so much as even checking whether or not Bush was simply lying (which he was). Here was that kick-off:
We just heard the Prime Minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied — finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need [in order for Congress to authorize an invasion of Iraq].
PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Absolutely right.
The IAEA denied the President’s allegation on four occasions, not only immediately but especially (since virtually no news-medium reported any of their first three denials) on its fourth try, on 27 September 2002, when finally it got reported to the public in the small newspaper the Washington Times, which headlined obtusely “Agency disavows report on Iraq arms”, so that no one would even pay any attention to the story, instead of, for example, headlining honestly “IAEA Says Pres. Bush Lies to Say IAEA Is His Source for WMD Allegation Against Iraq”. (Any headline-writer who would have done so would have been fired.) The article can be read here, so you can see how this newspaper tried to give the false impression that Bush had erred instead of lied, and that the article then went on to skillfully distract its readers away from and ignore that question of “lie” altogether — as a consequence of which the article had no impact. This had been the only real chance to get the word “lie” into the coming debate, and nobody had the courage so to announce that “The emperor has no clothes.” Meanwhile, the Bush Administration built upon Bush’s lie in order to fool the public that there should be an invasion of Iraq so as to stop Saddam’s (non-existent-since-1998) nuclear-weapons and other WMD programs. Furthermore, the NYT headlined on 25 September 2002 “Blair Says Iraqis Could Launch Chemical Warheads in Minutes”, and reported (also stenographically) the also entirely concocted “Britain asserted today that the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein could launch chemical or biological warheads within 45 minutes of an order to use them and acquire a nuclear weapon in one to five years.” How many people cancelled their New York Times subscriptions once such extremely toxic regime-reinforcing lies as ‘news’ in the NYT (the home of “All the ‘News’ That’s Fit to Print”) became manifestly clear in retrospect? But instead, that newspaper thrived. It’s the way to profit in the propaganda-business.
Here is a good 25-minute video news-report on the consequences of that U.S.-and-allied aggression against Iraq. Furthermore, on 29 September 2015, I headlined and reported: “GALLUP: ‘Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest Populations in the World’,” showing that even 12 years after America's invasion, Iraqis were far worse-off after this destruction of their country than before it. But the invasion was extremely profitable for such U.S. firms as Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil and Halliburton and many others. So, America’s billionaires got their moneys-worth out of him. And, of course, the body-bag manufacturers also did. And then President Trump even publicly threatened to financially destroy Iraq if they would demand an end to America’s occupation of their country. And Joe Biden continued it. Uncle Sam is as brutal an imperialist as ever was. Because virtually all Iraqis want America to be expelled from their country, Iraq’s Pariament voted unanimously for that, and Iraq’s Prime Minister said that it must be done, but it has never been done.
But George W. Bush mainstreamed neoconservatism — U.S. global conquest — into the American Presidency. In fact, even before he won the Presidency, this had been his intention: to be a “war president.” Russ Baker, in a 27 October 2004 article, “Bush Wanted to Invade Iraq if Elected in 2000”, wrote: “‘He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,’ said author and journalist [Bush’s ghostwriter] Mickey Herskowitz. ‘It was on his mind. He said to me: “One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.” And he said, “My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.” He said, “If I have a chance to invade … if I had that much capital [which is what the 9/11 attacks did give him], I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I’m going to have a successful presidency”.’ ” Almost immediately after Bush invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, he switched his focus to finishing the job with Saddam Hussein that his father had — so, apparently, thought Bush Jr. — left ‘unfinished’. And he was correct about the American public: his job-approval soared to 90% on 21-22 September 2001, due to the 9/11 attacks — he had just given his war-address to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001 and announced then the invasion of Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and kill all of them. “The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.” — and that was his “political capital.” He quickly began to spend it on Iraq, but he announced that this would be a war against Muslims everywhere who hate “all Americans.” Immediately, America’s Muslims became targeted by Americans. Bush aimed to build and exploit that majoritarian American fear and hatred against Muslims, in other nations too, starting with Iraq. “This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.”
Furthermore, Linda Bilmes of Harvard noted at 21:00- in that 25-minute video, “We have spent at least two trillion dollars to-date in out-of-pocket money; we have committed at least an additional two trillion dollars to-date in veterans, social security, …” resulting from this invasion of Iraq. So: the U.S. federal debt will be at least $4 trillion higher because of this one evil decision by that President. At least $2T of that has already been spent (in addition to the vastly higher losses to the residents of Iraq). Right now the U.S. federal debt is over $33T. Bush’s invasion of Iraq enriched his friends and produced enormously higher losses than that to the rest of the world. It wasn’t merely a taking; it was a much more massive destruction. And it was fueled by that hatred.
As regards Trump and Iran, he has hated and despised and wanted to regime-change Iran ever since at least 1980. On 17 June 2025 the AP headlined “US spies said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismisses that assessment”, and reorted that he has contemppt for the intelligence from his own top intelligence officials, Tulsi Gabbard, who writes his Daily Intelligence Bries of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies and told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” But Trump says: “I don’t care what she said,’ Trump told reporters. In his view, Iran was ‘very close’ to having a nuclear bomb.’” GW Bush on 7 September 2002 had said that “a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need [in order for Congress to authorize an invasion of Iraq].”
Neither the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media nor the publics that they constantly deceive have learned anything from history because those ‘news’-media and ‘historians’ constantly publicize without disproving their lies, and their publics never learn the lesson from it.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
