The White House now tells black lies

The Bush administration has been found out telling lies. They have confirmed the old maxim: "In war, truth is the first casualty." Which is a statement attributed to many, but generally recognised as the first said by Aeschylus, a Greek tragic dramatist who lived from 525 BC to 456 BC.

The US-based Centre for Public Integrity has determined that the Bush administration lied 935 times over Iraq, prior to the invasion by the allied forces in March 2003. There are two issues here. The first being that it is astonishing to learn there is a US-based Centre for Public Integrity; it must be assumed their remit is to investigate the various statements of the country's leaders and politicians, so the centre must have its hands full with work, judging by the number of mistruths and falsehoods thrust upon the general public by US politicians.

But then it seems not, for the centre has had time to assess all the statements made by senior officials in the Bush administration, and count the number of lies it has told. It was 935 - but then maybe that figure is a falsehood and the real number is much higher.

The only other surprising thing about the revelation is that realisation of the half-truths and lies was not perceived earlier. Certainly the general public, if not in the US then globally, was aware that many of the statements being made were unproven or seemed illogical, which is why there were so many public demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, the White House has dismissed the report, claiming it was not alone in making the calls about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that leaders of other nations thought likewise. True, but then ignorance of the truth is not an acceptable defence in law.