Chief U.S. Weapons Inspector: 'We Were Wrong'; Authors of Weapons of Mass Deception: 'We Were Right'

2/2/2004

From: Ken Siman, 212-366-2519, Ken.Siman@us.penguingroup.com, or Kelly Groves, 212-366-2782, Kelly.Groves@us.penguingroup.com

NEW YORK, Feb. 2 -- Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay admitted that pre-war U.S. intelligence warnings about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were wrong. After many months of searching, Kay and his team found none of the chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons President Bush cited as his chief reason for waging war against Saddam Hussein.

According to recent polls, more than half of the American public believed the President's assertions that Iraq had an advanced weapons program that proved a direct threat to the U.S. and roughly the same number continue to believe that there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, despite the recent admission by Secretary of State Colin Powell that no such connection existed.

Did the Bush Administration manipulate intelligence in order to justify their desire to go to war? Did the White House deliberately mislead the American people?

"Yes," say John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, investigative reporters and authors of the national bestseller WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq (Tarcher/Penguin). "The American people were led into a pre- emptive war as a result of one of the most deliberate, aggressive, and highly successful public relations campaign this country has ever seen."

Published in 2003, WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION was the first book to expose the Bush Administration's distorting PR spin that helped sell the public on "Operation: Iraqi Freedom." Now, headlines across the globe are affirming the assertions in WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION.

With meticulous research and documentation, Stauber and Rampton exposed that:

-- Bush and his advisers wanted to invade Iraq even before he was inaugurated President, but waited until September 2002 to inform the public, in what the White House termed a "product launch."

-- White House officials used repetition and misinformation to create the false impression that Iraq was behind the attacks of September 11.

-- Forged documents were used to "prove" that Iraq sought nuclear materials and possessed a huge stockpile of banned weapons.

Americans want the truth. WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION delivers the truth.

About the authors: John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton are the bestselling authors of Toxic Sludge is Good for You, Mad Cow USA, and Trust Us, We're Experts. Stauber is the founder and director of The Center for Media and Democracy, a non-profit, public interest organization dedicated to investigative reporting. Stauber and Rampton write and edit the quarterly PR Watch: Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry. They live in Madison, Wisconsin.