Ex-Treasury Chief: Saw No Evidence of Iraq WMDs

[Zhade]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20040111/ts_nm/people_oneill_dc_10

Ex-Treasury Chief: Saw No Evidence of Iraq WMDs

By Adam Entous

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said he never saw any evidence that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction -- President Bush (news - web sites)'s main justification for going to war -- and was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.


In excerpts from a new book chronicling his rocky two-year tenure and an interview with Time magazine, O'Neill said Bush balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.


O'Neill, fired in a shake-up of Bush's economic team in December 2002, also said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) that growing budget deficits -- expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone -- posed a threat to the U.S. economy.


Cheney cut him off, according to the interview posted on the Time Web site on Sunday. "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said. O'Neill said he was too dumbfounded to respond. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due."

[mobuto]

1. The "deficits don't matter" comment is scary

it reminds me of the Reaganauts who said "tax or borrow - what's the difference?"

And it shows just how little Dick Cheney understands the economy.

But as for WMD, I fail to see why Paul O'Neill is indignant he wasn't shown evidence. Now we know now that the evidence that existed, insofar as it did exist, was sketchy at best. But why would the Secretary of the Treasury expect to receive sensitive national security estimates in the first place?

[On the Road]

4. Why?

Wasn't O'Neill on the National Security Council? As such, he would have seen more of this kind of information that the average cabinet member.

[mike_c]

2. god I hope this blows the doors off of those evil bastards...

...once and for all. If Bush* can win against a democratic soap-dish in November I will lose all hope for America. I think the shrub administration has finally been exposed by someone even the republicans will listen to. I wonder how many of them are beginning to taste the same sense of betrayal that we've been living with since 2001?

[Zhade]

3. AGREED. (Totally off-topic, but I LOVE your sig line!)

NT!