David Schuster reported on PNAC yesterday -- transcript [View All]

[grasswire]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6814437/

Long before President Bush gave the orders, using force to topple Saddam was a glint in the eye of the civilians who would become key players in the Bush administration.

In 1998, a neoconservative think tank called the Project for the New American Century wrote to President Clinton, “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to ‘undertake military action.’”

A list of those who signed the 1998 letter include Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, and John Bolton.

In addition to those who signed the 1998 pronouncement, Perle and two of his top associates had already urged an aggressive new strategy in 1996. Perle’s group embraced overthrowing Iraq’s Saddam and replacing him with a monarchy that would “redefine Iraq.”

In 1998, after Iraq severed ties with the U.N. commission in charge of weapons inspectors, Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act. It called for arming rebel forces, but did not advocate U.S. military involvement.

More at the link above. (we ought to be grateful for this, even though it's a couple of years late)