Regardless of whether the Bush administration made the right decision in releasing photos of what it says are the dead bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the fact remains that Americans can be no more sure of the veracity of these claims than the Iraqis and other Arabs they were meant to impress.
We simply cannot take our government’s word for it.
No doubt there are some reasons for a government to lie to its own people. Selected matters of national security, perhaps, but these instances should be carefully selected indeed. If a government starts believing too much in its own self-righteousness, it can justify more and more things being withheld from the public for its own good. Dictators and totalitarian regimes lie regularly to their people. Democratically-elected officials should not.
You’d think this could all go unsaid, but Bush has shown that his government is willing to lie to protect its vision of what must be done in Iraq, regardless of what the evidence has shown.
Other presidents have lied, to be sure. Nixon and his sidekick Henry Kissinger lied regularly about international affairs, and Clinton will be remembered for the half-truths and untruths he told about his romantic entanglements. But this does not excuse Bush’s behavior.
Bush’s lies about Iraq have destroyed what limited credibility remained abroad. And they have left Americans distrustful of our own government, more cynical about what we are told and suspicious of what is being left unsaid.
As much as we hate to say it, we wouldn’t put it beneath Donald Rumsfeld and the White House to manufacture the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein. Improbable? Yes. Impossible? Sadly, no.
