center for public integrity

Center Unveils Windfalls of War II Investigation

• President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

• On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

• Located in Washington, DC, USA, the Center for Public Integrity produces reports aimed to provide transparent and insightful reporting. Topics include the financing of political campaigns, the stewardship of public institutions by governing officials, the influence private interests wield in federal and state government, and the ultimate results of public policy.

• The Center releases its reports via its web site, press releases and traditional book publishing. The information it collects and analyzes often reaches the public secondhand through coverage in conventional news mediums like television and newsprint. The Center's highest-profile release, "The Buying of the President", appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for three months after its January 2004 publication. The Center also collects and organizes the public records it gathers into online databases so that other reporters and the public have access to the information. In 2006, Slate media critic Jack Shafer described the Center as having "broken as many stories as almost any big-city daily in the last couple of decades".

• Because it is funded by a network of private donors and philanthropic organizations rather than advertisers, the Center operates on a business model different from most traditional news organizations.

source : lonestartimes.com,wikipedia,mahalo.com