On March 20, 2003, as the Bush administration launched its offensive attack on Iraq, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber began writing Weapons of Mass Deception, which was published in July, 2003. Although the book was a New York Times bestseller, it was never reviewed by the New York Times and like other books criticizing or questioning the war on Iraq it was ignored by the mainstream press. Weapons of Mass Deception pointed out that indeed, contrary to the claims of the Bush administration that were being echoed over and over in the US mainstream media, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, was not involved with Al Qaeda, and most likely did not have an active program of WMD - weapons of mass deception.

A chapter in the book titled The Air War examines the way the US media became like cheerleaders for the war, engaging in the Big Lie tactic that echoed Bush propaganda while ignoring critics of the war. Another chapter examines how the war was really hatched in the 1990s in the offices of PNAC, the neoconservative think tank started by William Kristol, and with bipartisan US funding for the Iraqi National Congress, the CIA front group that supplied most of the phony defectors cited by Judith Miller and other reporters as justification for the US attack. The book examines the roll of PR experts in and out of the Bush administration including The Rendon Group and John Rendon.


"No more bed-time stories... these guys are here to wake you up." - Greg Palast "A major contribution for those who want to take control of their own future, not be passive subjects of manipulation and control." - Noam Chomsky