Former Congressman charges Bush officials 'duped' America into Iraq War

At a screening of Phil Donahue's documentary, "Body of War," strongly critical of Congress' October 2002 vote giving President Bush authority to decide to preemptively invade Iraq, former Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat representing Queens and Long Island, New York, accused the Bush Administration of duping the American people and their elected officials and perpetrating "the largest fraud on American history."

Ackerman, who cast nearly 17,000 votes in his 30 year career in the House before retiring this year, calls the Iraq vote the worst he ever cast, and said he and others were duped by deliberate misinformation.

[At 2:38 in, former Congressman Gary Ackerman, takes the microphone.]

"I unwittingly participated in what I think was the largest fraud on American history and I was duped," Ackerman declares (at 2:38 minutes into the video). "I think a lot of people came to the wrong conclusion earnestly.... It wasn't because I didn't know how to ask the right questions, it's because I believed the answers, and a lot of people believed the answers."

Ackerman, who cast nearly 17,000 votes in his 30 year career in the House, calls the Iraq vote the worst he ever cast, and said he and others were duped by deliberate misinformation.

Not just Congress, but Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was tasked with making the case before the United Nations. Ackerman related, "I asked Colin Powell - one of the most pained people I ever met, after going through what he went through - and I asked them how did they do that? He said I spent 3 full days and nights down at the agency, asking every conceivable question, looking at every conceivable document that they showed ...

"They pulled a ruse on the American people, on the Senate and the Congress...."

Ackerman, who was invited to answer a question posed to Phil Donahue, the famed talk-show host who produced the documentary independently, said, " I've never told this story and I can't go to jail for telling it now."

With that, he related how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October 2002, two days before the vote and just three weeks before the midterm elections, - was making a case to vote to give Bush authority to decide to go to war.

There were pictures lining the wall, he recalled. "One was a factory that shows what it looked like two days before the second - trucks leaving, smoke coming out of smokestack and a nuclear facility in Iraq, they said, that was active several days before, and then they showed the picture currently where they had taken everything out, no trucks, no smoke.

"I asked the Secretary: 'That picture - and I don't have a photographic memory - looks very familiar to me, because I was in this room not that long ago and Colin Powell during the last Iraq War showed what I think was that exact same factory. Is this a current picture?' It's a decade later. Is this that same factory?

"He chuckled, and said, 'I assure you this is a very current picture....'

"That was bullshit,:" Ackerman said, "but I couldn't swear that it was the same exact picture."

Ackerman related that some time later, after the Iraq war was already well underway, when the Congressman had become a critic of the war, the Secretary came before a briefing and the Congressman confronted him again about the photo.

"He said, 'Let me check into that, I don't remember that.' And he sent me a letter a week later and said the whole thing was a product of my imagination.

"I learned that day that there is a big difference between being wrong, being bad and being evil. and I believe him and Cheney were and remain pure evil, to have done that to our country, and to its elected representatives who are responsible for our actions.

"And I assure you that there is nobody who felt more pain watching this thing [the story of Tomas Young who was paralyzed after a bullet struck his spine just five days after he arrived in Iraq, riding in an open car with no armored protection] than anybody else because I participated in enabling the President of the United States the ability to go to war any time and any place because I thought it would prove that we remain nimble in the face of what we were shown....

"If there is any solace in this, I would tell you with a high degree of certainty that if we had not passed the ball to the President and we voted directly as a Congress that day and the Senate that day, according to the Constitution to exercise our responsibility to declare war, that that would have passed by the same vote.... because everybody came to the conclusion, it was a terrible moment, an abdication of our responsibility,... a very painful vote....

"But we will live with this lesson, hopefully that we learned.....But the public did not participate enough and keep the feet to the fire...." he said, begging the question whether it could happen again.

The former New York Congressman, whose district included Great Neck, Long Island, spoke at the Great Neck Arts Center where Donahue's documentary, Body of War, was screened.

Body of War is an intimate feature documentary about the face of war today. It follows Tomas Young, 25, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine. He was wounded after serving in Iraq for less than one week.

The film is his coming home story, as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The picture is produced and directed by Donahue, along with Ellen Spiro, and features two original songs by Eddie Vedder.

Among other recognitions, Body of War captured the Best Documentary Award from the National Board of Review, the Grand Jury Prize at Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, and a People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival. In addition, it was short listed for an Oscar nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Karen Rubin, Long Island Populist Examiner
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