Following up a BRAD BLOG article from Oct. 6th...
During the Vice-Presidential Debate Dick Cheney accused John Edwards of being "dead wrong" when Edwards asserted that "we've taken 90 percent of the coalition casualties." Cheney argued that we've only taken 50 percent because Edwards, apparently, was not counting Iraqis as part of the "Coalition".
To fact-check that, I went to the White House website to see who they counted as part of the "Coalition" and came across a page at the site from a special "RENEWAL IN IRAQ" report they have online. The page was entitled "The Coalition".
On the page was a sidebar (pictured at right) with a link to a document named "Who are the Coalition Members?" Clicking that link lead to an error page that said "The file you have attempted to access cannot be found..."
Thanks to Google's cached archive of the White House site, I was able to find the document originally linked there which listed some 40 countries as "Members of the Coalition". None of them were named Iraq.
A Bush supporter Emailed me that accidents like that happen all the time, and I shouldn't presume, simply from a broken link, that the White House was trying to hide something. Especially since I had also asked in my original article "what other official pieces of information once posted to the White House website (theoretically owned by the people of the United States of America) have been scrubbed as well from the historical record?" He told me that he'd written to the White House Webmaster to tell them about it, and he suggested I give them a week or so to fix the link before crying foul. He had a point, and so I too emailed the webmaster to ask what was up.
That was almost two weeks ago, and I've not received a reply from the White House webmaster on the topic. However, you'll be glad to know they fixed the link. By removing it. The updated sidebar on the same page (pictured at right) no longer features a link to "Who are the Coalition Members?" It's just been scrubbed entirely.
The White House can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt here, since someone had to actually change the linked graphic in question. Historical documentation on the people's web site has been removed. Period. Who knows what else is no longer there, removed after it was no longer political useful to the White House to have it online? (And are they supposed to be using the tax payer supported White House website for political purposes?)
For the record, since the Iraq War began, America has taken 1,100 military casualties. All other countries combined in the "Coalition" (whoever they may be) have taken a total of 138 military casualities. America's share of "Coalition" casualties: 89.5%.
Bush/Cheney '04: Will Say Anything to Win.
UPDATED THOUGHT: Remember how critical the Right was of Michael Moore for showing all those happy Iraqi children playing peacefully in Saddam's Iraq in Fahrenheit 9/11? Well, here's the White House's banner graphic for their special "Renewal in Iraq" report on their website:
It should be noted that some 21,800 Iraqi civilians, many of them children like the ones above, have been killed in Iraq since America started the war there.
LATE UPDATE 10/18/04: Audio and Video now being removed from White House Website as well! See this update - "More Scrubbing of White House Website!!! Audio & Video Removed!"
MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/22/04: Hooray! Mainstream media finally picks up on this story!
WAY LATER UPDATE 10/25/04: The Washington Post finally picks up the story today! Twice!
MUCH MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/29/04: BRAD BLOG SUCCESS! WH restores Audio/Video! Though much still missing...