Well Lookie here! Book Alleges Secret Iraq War Plan

dunno if you will see this or not, you claimed to put me on ignore a while back, anyways..

I agree with you here, I think Bush and Rumsfield biggest error and mistake is thinking that there are a finite number of radicals that once you kill them all, the terrorism will stop

They fail to see that their "might is right" actions only create more radicals and fuel the terrorist's drive and ambition.

Of course a lot of us against the Iraq war warned that this is what would happen.....

 

I think the neocons have an antiquated world-view that is unrealistic

Agreed, but why do you support their war in Iraq?

 

What's depressing about those polls is the apparent causation with how well the war is going at the time, not the knowledge gleaned of the administration's stated vs. actual motivations.

The spikes are with the flight suit and the capture of Hussein. The dips are American bodybags.

It seems to me that the revelations of Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, the former British amassador and now Woodward (more concrete substantiation of the obvious) didn't/won't affect the way Americans perceive the Iraq war as much as the perception of whether we're winning/losing.

 

a.) I think the John Dean book, "Worse Than Watergate" will be more interesting

b.) where did you get that picture of the coffins from?

 

To add to Rockets10 comment, here's a more complete story... notice the bolding... the cost for planning the Iraq War was hidden frpm Congress and taken out of the Afghan ops.

Rule of Law anyone?
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Journalist Shares War Secrets
April 16, 2004


Legendary journalist Bob Woodward discusses his new book, which reveals secret details of the White House’s plans to attack Iraq, for the first time on television in an interview with correspondent Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, Sunday, April 18, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Woodward interviewed 75 of the people who helped prepare for the war, including President Bush – the only source who speaks for attribution -- in the upcoming book, “Plan of Attack,” published by Simon & Schuster. Both CBSNews.com and Simon & Schuster are units of Viacom.

In the interview, Woodward talked about how the administration was able to finance secret preparations for the Iraq war.

"President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?' What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret," says Woodward.

"... The end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ... Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."

In a preview of Sunday's piece, Wallace described a conversation between Mr. Bush and CIA director George Tenet in which Tenet assured Mr. Bush that finding weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk."

Woodward writes of a White House meeting on Dec. 21, 2002, attended by CIA Director George Tenet and his top deputy John McLaughlin, who briefed the president and the vice president assuring them that Saddam Hussein definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"McLaughlin has access to all the satellite photos, and he goes in and he has flip charts in the Oval Office," Woodward tells Wallace. "The president listens to all of this and McLaughlin's done. And and the president kind of, as he's inclined to do, says, 'Nice try,' but that isn't going to sell Joe Public. That isn't going to convince Joe Public."

Woodward writes in his book, "The presentation was a flop. The photos were not gripping. The intercepts were less than compelling. And then George Bush turns to George Tenet and says, 'this is the best we've got?'"

Says Woodward: "George Tenet's sitting on the couch, stands up, and says, 'Don't worry, it's a slam dunk case." And the president challenges him again and Tenet says, 'the case it's a slam dunk.'"

And that reassured the president?

"I asked the president about this and he said it was very important to have the CIA director, 'slam-dunk' is as I interpreted it, a sure thing, guaranteed."

Wallace tells Woodward this is an extraordinary statement to come from Tenet.

"It's a mistake," says Woodward. "Now the significance of that mistake, that was the key rationale for war."

Woodward will answer the following questions, among others, in the interview with Wallace Sunday night:


How early did President Bush begin planning the war on Iraq?


In the war’s wake, which top administration officials now barely speak to each other?


What did the CIA say to President Bush to convince him that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?


Which foreign dignitary was told of the plans to attack Iraq days before even key cabinet members were briefed?


Which key advisers did President Bush ask – and not ask – about whether he should go to war with Iraq?


Why did the CIA think Saddam had been killed before the ground war even began?

 

There's a suggestion that the money they scammed from Afghanistan to plan for Iraq was meant for economic and humanitarian aid. I wonder if this money could have made a difference and would have prevented us from losing ground in recent months.

Unbelieveable.
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http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3368&sequence=0

 

What a 180 from the Clinton years..

Republicans.... What say you about this?

http://www.conservativeusa.org/wagdog.htm

http://www.conservativeusa.org/iraq-war.htm

 

Great find (though I'm no Republican).

They don't argue only that the air strikes are a political move by Clinton (debatable), they also argue that it's a moral issue not to push for democracy in Iraq: 'What has Hussein done to us?' & 'No worse than China.'

My favorite is this bit of prescience:

Hilarity, if not for reality's sake.

 

I retract my previous post; it was a kneejerk reaction. To be a hypocrite an organization must reverse its position without a concurrent ideological change. Upon further study, I can't find where this organization supported the Iraq war; in fact, it seems to have vehemently opposed it. The Conservative Cause seems more a 10 Commandments in every courthouse / Montana militia / 'Beware the One World Government' type of conservative than the 'Everything the GOP says is truth' type of conservative.

Although I don't agree with them, they do seem principled.

Dated 9.15.01, regarding lessons of September 11:

The following are headlines from the website in question. I think it's pretty clear they opposed the war, on financial and constitutional grounds.

I shouldn't have jumped to such conclusions. My apologies to all such highly principled conservatives, and for wasting bandwith.

 

A source of the pictures of coffins:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001906489_kuwait18m.html

The somber task of honoring the fallen

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter



Flag-draped coffins are secured inside a cargo plane on April 7 at Kuwait International Airport. Military and civilian crews take great care with the remains of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. Soldiers form an honor guard and say a prayer as, almost nightly, coffins are loaded for the trip home.

The aluminum boxes, in ordered rows, are bound by clean white straps on freshly scrubbed pallets. American flags are draped evenly over the boxes. Uniformed honor guards form on either side of the pallets as they move from the tarmac to the entryways of the cargo planes. There are prayers, salutes and hands on hearts. Then the caskets are carefully placed in cargo holds for a flight to Germany.
In recent weeks, military and civilian contract crews have loaded scores of these caskets onto planes departing the U.S. military area of Kuwait International Airport, south of Kuwait City. And the rituals are repeated over and over again.
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