"Bush campaign ads using team"

[Thecla]

Facts selected specifically for how they shape the understanding of a topic.

Any facts have to be interpreted within a broader framework.

The framework here is that the Bush administration, or key members of it at any rate, was determined to go after Iraq from the day it took office. After 9/11 happened, they exploited the threat of terrorism to sell the Iraq war by arguing: a) Iraq was working with al Qaeda; b) Iraq possessed WMDs; c) there was an immanent threat of Iraq providing al Qaeda with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. To do so they exaggerated every piece of evidence in favor of these arguments, however unreliable the sources, and ignored everything else. They didn't care about truth, they just wanted to sell the war -- and they were successful in doing that in the US as the above poll numbers attest. As it turns out, Iraq didn't have WMDs and it wasn't working with al Qaeda. However, the administration probably doesn't care too much about that since terrorism was never their principle reason for going to war.