A study by two non-profit journalism organisations has found that President George W Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses”.

The study was posted on Tuesday on the website of the Centre for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. The White House did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaeda or both.

“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaeda,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study.

“In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied — Vice-President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

... contd.