Bush planed Iraq war pre 9/11
 

The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes


http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ush/index.html



Why am I not suprized. This is a republican that used to work for him saying this so it is pretty creditable.

this is a quote from the article you linked to

Hmmmm,

So a disgruntled former Bush employee comes with with a book that slams the president and "exposes" top-level information that he's not in a position to have access to? Pardon me while i remain skeptical about Mr. O'Neill's motives.

Kitso
KS 361 times say it with me now, "The world is a better place with Saddam out of power"

Maybe they were discussed in a cabinet meeting? All issues are discussed there.

Although, given that the guy remains nameless, his credibility isn't too great either.

At this point it's really too early to tell whether or not it's legitimate, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out, if at all.

All issues are not discussed in Cabinet meetings, particularly security issues.

Does it say they were discussed in a cabinet meeting? It just says he "saw" documents with certain titles.

I'll admit, i'm not an expert on Presidential routine, but i'd imagine that if the President is recieving a briefing on certain topics, especially extremely sensitive ones, the only people in attendence would be those who the report directly affects. I doubt you would have the Sec of Commerce in a NSA briefing concerning the N. Korean nuke threat, unless there was a part of the threat that particular applied.

If it's not discussed with the whole cabinet, it gives those members who weren't present reasonable plausible deniability.

And i agree that the source who isn't named doesn't carry much credibility either. But, don't you think that Bush also has reports on how to take out Kim Jong-Il or until recently Kahdaffi? There are probably hundreds of contigency plans in the NSA or DoD offices concerning the toppling of anti-American dictators. It wouldn't be very practical if there weren't.

ETA: Russ beat me to it. :D

Kitso
KS 361

Exactly. If we don't have contingency plans for a military conflict with all regimes that are hostile to the U.S., then the DoD isn't doing its job.

What scares me about this "news" is that it implies that the Clinton administration did not have plans to invade Iraq. That would be gross negligence and scandalous.

oh c'mon now, tke....this guy was asked to resign....therefore he got das boot......i can't think that automatically makes him so creditable.

and saddam is out of power....finally.....this is a good thing, ok? i know that b/c bush is a repub whatever he says has to be a lie and a bad thing ;).....if by some chance gore was prez and he made the decision, you all would be singing his praises for being such a prepared and worthy man to be leading this country to great things.

everyone just needs to breathe every now and then, and not jump on liberal or conservative band wagon.

but i still luv ya, tke. :)

Well Russ,

I'm sure had another female accusor stepped forward, we would have seen a hastily slapped together argument for attacking some country, perhaps even Iraq ;)

Kitso
KS 361 times it ain't no fun, if Clinton can't have none

Supposedly we didn't have a contingency plan for afghanistan actually lol . . .

However, I think its generally accepted that a few cabinet officaials have always been Hawks on the Iraq issue. Maybe that is what they mean? Didn't Rumsfield put his name to a letter in the last administration? And wasn't the undersecretary of defense (?) really pushing for war in the beginning?

There are current members of the Bush administration who were recomending that we remove the Baathist regime to the Clinton administration since January 1993. There was the moral imperitive to remove a genocidal regime, as there was in Rwanda. Bill Clinton screwed up Somalia so bad that he was afraid to risk political capital to do what was right, particularly because he was an extremely unpopular president until 1996. Then when things started getting better, he didn't want to rock the boat. Mark my words, historians will shred the Clinton legacy to pieces in the coming decades.

Re: Bush planed Iraq war pre 9/11
 

Pretty much old news up here.....

The 5th Estate on the CBC did an expose of the Bush administration. It covered the history and doctrines supported by the individual members of his cabinet. It was pretty bag on in its anylsis and predictions regarding the reasoning and politcal maneuvering behind the justification for an Iraq war. But everything covered by O'Neill was pretty much covered a year or so ago in the expose.

This has been touched on earlier, but let me add a word or two. The Dept of Defence operates a continuously updating program called "The Deliberate Planning Cycle" It addresses broad based operational plans (OP PLANS) for whole theaters of operation and more focused 'what if?' contingency plans (CON PLANS) for specific areas (like Iraq). There are many layers of staff officers who are charged with determining and contributing to the development of plans that try to figure in what and where we might become involved all around the world. These plans cover everything from full military intervention to reactive assistance to non combatant evacuation operations to humanitarian assistance operations. You name it, DOD has a plan for it, and it is updated regularly. Business as usual for many decades. I would be awfully surprised if every new president wasn't briefed on the program, even as early as the pre inauguration transition period, given overviews of what the current plans say, and have the planners respond to his guidance on what and where to bring emphasis or whatever. These plans generate documents and are known to exist. They are available to all who have the proper level of security clearance and who possess a need to know. Of course they would come up from time to time in high level meetings where the attendees had need to know and clearance. What exactly is the question here? Are we really saying that the DOD planners should bury their heads in the sand and keep the President in the dark? By the way, since these plans are CLASSIFIED information do we expect the president to casually announce "Hay Guys, we have this plan to invade Vatican City..."

Thanks darlin.

Yes its good to have Sadaam gone, but if he lied about the reasons going there to the country he is no better than Clinton when he lied to the country. Just because Bush's lie lead to something good doesn't justify the lie.