John Swango

John Swango is a historian and researcher wirting about how the U.S. went to Iraq during the second Bush administration, including ways Bush officials manipulated public opinionon to do so.

Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush just prior to the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.

The first report, delivered to President Bush in early October 2002, was a one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that said whether Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes was for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon. The disclosure that Bush was informed of the dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney was citing the tubes as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither man told the public about the disagreement among the agencies-- which were used as a key rationale to take the nation to war with Iraq, according to a new Murray Waas story in National Journal.