Bush admits he targeted Saddam from the start

[Norbert]

WASHINGTON -- President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he was mapping preparations to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as soon as he took office.

Bush's comments came in response to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's contention in a new book that the chief executive was gunning for Saddam nine months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two years before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Bush's comments appeared likely to stoke campaign claims by Democratic rivals for the White House that the president was planning to attack Iraq, possibly in retaliation for Saddam's attempted 1993 assassination of his father, former President Bush.

"The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear -- like the previous administration, we were for regime change," Bush told a joint news conference in Monterrey, Mexico, with Mexican President Vicente Fox. "And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with (enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq) and so we were fashioning policy along those lines."


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/156352_bushsummit13.html

I'm starting to think the "best" days of the dim sons pResidency may be behind him.

[TacticalPeek]

1. The buck stops with Bill.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. But Clinton didn't attack Iraq because there was no public support for it.

Bush ignored public opinion. Even after the WTC, there was no real rationale or support for it, but he went in anyway.

[Zhade]

49. Care to extend your remarks a bit?

If you mean Bill Clinton was the original planner, you're dead wrong. PNAC was.

So am I misreading you here?

[goforit]

2. But was this the motive for the 911 demise and anthrax scare?

Hmmmm.........people will be thinking twice now.

[lazarus]

3. Watch

They're going to shift this to "regime change" and Clinton. And make out that this wasn't planning for invasion and war. They're lying already, again.

[leQ]

11. i say since he's confirmed part of suskind's book

what prevents the rest of it from holding the same weight? i haven't read the book yet, of course, but hear that hundreds were interviewed with similar 'allegations'. certainly o'neill's carries a bit more credence of being an attendee at NSC meetings, but still, i think the book is more about the shrub's style than any one issue.

and after watching the 60 Minutes interview, i got the feeling that o'neill was presenting a reality check about how the 'inner circle' operates as a matter of S.O.P. rather than as reactionaries to all the crises. case in point: how bu$h sat with the school children while our country was under attack.

even gore reiterated this point in his speech in mason city iowa saturday night. this isn't just about getting bu$h and his cronies out of the whitehouse, it's about needing fundamental change in how washington operates.

how effective can a new democratic president be when he gets stuck with the same republicon congress? changing congress should be a higher priority than changing the whitehouse, imho.

[joeunderdog]

23. Dems should hammer the "Hidden Agenda" issue for all Bush proposals.

It's (at the very least) a matter of trust, of not being straight with the American public in the first place. Bush is like Pet Rose--only admitting to his crime at the last possible (self-serving) moment. Why should we believe him about his motives if he would lie about war? Why wasn't he straight with us?

Dems should ask voters "We've been duped once. Will he try to fool us again?"

Most people who backed the war would rather say they were duped than wrong. Give them an out.

[BigBigBear]

4. uh-huh

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/23/gen.war.on.terror/


BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- President Bush reiterated Thursday that Iraq remains a significant threat, but he stopped short of saying the United States will go to war with the Middle Eastern country.

"I have no war plans on my desk," Bush said at a Berlin news conference during the first stop of his European tour.

[Terran]

29. Liar Liar, Pants on Fire!

That story is dated May 23, 2002. In March 2002, Bush made his infamous remark to a group of US Senators visitng the WH: "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." (http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/040803.html, as originally printed in Time)

No war plans, eh Georgie?

Caught in a boldfaced lie!

[Bake]

46. But, but, but ... the plans aren't ON his desk!

They're in KKKarl's pocket!

Bake

[salin]

6. Problems for bush...

I wrote this on another thread, and am plagerizing myself to post it here as well - added (he) where needed to make sense

1) (he) decried "Nation Building" during campaign.

So if he intended all along to invade, depose and occupy, then he lied during the campaign.

2) during the campaign (he) never used an invasion of Iraq as a platform.

His language suggests this was always a priority of his, but his neglecting to mention such a major priority is equal to disallowing citizens, through their vote, to approve or disapprove of his actual priorities. Furthermore his language was of a more "humble foreign policy", again demonstrating outright deceit going back to the campaign.

3) this claim doesn't explain the huge PR buildup both to the public and to Congress in order to get the resolution passed that allowed a full scale invasion.

He didn't use the argument that this was an on-going Clinton era policy, nor that the policy should be stepped up due to the War on Terrorism. Instead he, Cheney, Rice and Powell made inferences linking 9-11 to Iraq (they have admitted that all along there was NO evidence to suggest this) AND that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the US national security because of possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (now also disproven.) Changing the tune now, falls very flat.

4) documents about divvying up the oil rights in Iraq suggest far more than 'regime change' was intended - including US control of, or at least influence over oil contracts in Iraq.

Regime change simply means changing the person at top (think of the Fall of the Soviet Union) - it does not, in and of itself - mean full scale invasion and occupation. The documents suggest plans much more serious than policies toward 'regime change'. This raises a second question, that I hope people begin asking:

WHY would they plan for more than two years plans regarding control of oil contracts, but NOT plan for a) contingencies if the invasion didn't go as smoothly as assumed or b) for occupation once invasion occurred. (Answer: the oil was important, and the planners were so ideologically blind that they simply couldn't even "hear questions" (see Karen Kiatowski (sp)) about other possible outcomes other than a simplistic fairy tale of laying down arms, throwing roses and parades, welcoming the US troops and quickly establishing a US friendly regime.)

WHY would they begin planning for securing the oil fields (remember this is what they secured FIRST), while NOT planning to secure nuclear facilities nor other conventional weapons facilities (remember the looting that occurred early on...) Especially given the oft sold threat that the Iraqi's were dangerous specifically because they COULD pass on those technologies/weapons to terrorists. (Answer: clearly they viewed oil as a high priority, and for all of their claims to the contrary they were not really worried about Weapons of Mass Destruction, or weapons going from Saddam and the Iraqis to terrorists. Note: It is ALL about the priorities.)

In short - Bush's response leaves him even more naked - in terms of how this non-answer jibes with all of the rhetoric and actions of his campaign and presidency. The question is whether any members of the press will pick up on these themes, and whether any of those who were swayed into his camp based on moderation or who came to back him out of loyalty after 911 will begin to question that support.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. Add to that if they planned it so well

then why were our troops so poorly prepared when they hit the ground?

Why are we now short of troops and unprepared were we to have a war in another theater?

Why was the cost SO UNDERESTIMATED?

Why did they have to FAKE war games when in fact the situations faced by the troops when they hit the ground were SO MUCH MORE CONSISTENT with the war games they failed?

and last but not least:


FOR WHAT REASON? He did the opposite of Clinton in every OTHER respect.

Great post, BTW, Salin! :thumbsup:

[salin]

24. as to the first question

perhaps that blue/red "rigged" army game back in 2001 or 2002 holds the answer. Am going to search to see if I can find it. They were working from such ideological positions -that even in the war-gaming, when those playing the role of the enemy did something unexpected... rather than letting it play out - and then having a very instructional debriefing ... or rather than starting again and having the US side adjust its strategy... they cried "Do Over"... BUT You (the other side) aren't allowed to do that! (As if in real combat situation you can write the rules and control the actions of the other side.)

Oh, thanks for the thumbsup. :D

[salin]

26. lol... slate just ran an article on it

first hit on google from a few days ago - same theme (we shouldn't be surprised)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2080814/
War-Gamed
Why the Army shouldn't be so surprised by Saddam's moves.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, March 28, 2003, at 1:55 PM PT


Much has been made of Thursday's remark by Lt. Gen. William Wallace, commander of U.S. Army forces in the Persian Gulf. Talking about the fierce and guerrilla-style resistance of Iraqi militia groups, Wallace said, "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against."

In fact, however, militia fighters did play a crucial role in a major war game designed to simulate combat in Iraq—but the Pentagon officials who managed the game simply disregarded or overruled the militias' most devastating moves.

(snip)

Officially, the war game was a great success; the theories were proven sound. However, on Aug. 12, as the game was winding to a close, a retired three-star U.S. Marine Corps general named Paul Van Riper wrote an e-mail to some of his friends, casting grave doubt on this conclusion.

Pentagon war games pit "Red Force" (simulating the enemy) against "Blue Force" (the United States). In this war game, as in many war games over the years, Van Riper played the Red Force commander. In his e-mail (which was promptly leaked to the Army Times then picked up, though in much less detail, by the Guardian and the Washington Post), Van Riper complained about Millennium Challenge 02, writing that, "Instead of a free-play, two-sided game … it simply became a scripted exercise." The conduct of the game did not allow "for the concepts of rapid decisive operations, effects-based operations, or operational net assessment to be properly assessed. … It was in actuality an exercise that was almost entirely scripted to ensure a Blue 'win.' "

More...

And the article in Army Times written at the time:

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1060102.php

August 16, 2002

War games rigged?
General says Millennium Challenge 02 ‘was almost entirely scripted’

By Sean D. Naylor
Times staff writer

The most elaborate war game the U.S. military has ever held was rigged so that it appeared to validate the modern, joint-service war-fighting concepts it was supposed to be testing, according to the retired Marine lieutenant general who commanded the game’s Opposing Force.

That general, Paul Van Riper, said he worries the United States will send troops into combat using doctrine and weapons systems based on false conclusions from the recently concluded Millennium Challenge 02. He was so frustrated with the rigged exercise that he said he quit midway through the game.

He said that rather than test forces against an unpredictable enemy, the exercise “was almost entirely scripted to ensure a ‘win.’ ”

(snip)

Exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue, and on several occasions directed the Opposing Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue. It even ordered him to reveal the location of Red units, he said

“We were directed … to move air defenses so that the Army and Marine units could successfully land,” he said. “We were simply directed to turn off or move them. … So it was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be.”

Retired Ambassador Robert Oakley, who participated in the experiment as Red civilian leader, said Van Riper was outthinking the Blue Force from the first day of the exercise.

More...
(snip)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. Yikes! I remember that article!

It showed up here at DU and was talked about a lot as it being evidence that something was in the works.

I'm now also remembering another story from aroudn that time about a sheriff or some other city official being shot (killed) by a military group that was doing some sort of exercise OFF BASE -- they thought the sheriff was part of the exercise and shot him when he went for his weapon. At the time we were speculating why a military group would be doing an exercise that involved going after civilian targets.

I wonder...

[Thor_MN]

35. Vintage Bush

Didn't he just change the rules on his brothers and cousins when he was losing a game as he was growing up? As the Commander and Thief, why shouldn't the military follow suit?

[wabeewoman]

20. Good job salin

You said what I wanted to say and more eloquently. The bottom line is bush kept saying he hadn't made up his mind to go to war in Iraq while our soldiers were lining up at the border and plans were being put into place. He lied. One thing about it, he is making some fine fodder for ads which won't have to call him a liar-just show him lying.

[salin]

21. That should be added...

if I rewrite this summary (and I might keep adding to it and redo it) I will include your point - it is a good one.

[Terran]

31. Your #2 is an excellent point

I have thought, since the whole Iraq invasion thing rose to the fore, that it was very odd, how the issue seemed to mushroom out of nowhere. Not once in campaign 2000 was Iraq mentioned as a threat to the US. So you are right--there being no public support for such a thing in 2000, Bush and Co. kept that little aspect of their plans under cover.

If the public had known they'd be invading Iraq in a few years, would Bush have gotten nearly as many votes as he did? Doubtful.

[worldgonekrazy]

36. Yes indeed, this should DAMN Bush

My hopes are soaring today, let me tell you. All this shit (Plame/Wilson affair, Iraq War lies, 9/11 investigation, etc.) is all coming to bear at precisely the right time. The floodgates are just about open.

[jamesinca]

47. Let us not forget the PNAC

In another post this afternoon somebody had made mention of the PNAC letters to president Clinton about war being the answer. This idea was rejected by Clinton. The goal may have been regeime change, but it is how this is done is the big question that is to be answered and asked I think. The policy of regeime change I believe was started during the G.H.W. Bush administration, not Clintons. It was just carried on during the Clinton years with sanctions. GW Bush went with the PNAC idea of war being the only answer. This brings another question to mind: Can Bush think for himself?

[KissMyAsscroft]

7. Fuck That!!!!!

They even had to clean up the moron's mangled english!

The badgers, and look, and etc....was cleaned up to (enforcing the no fly zone)

Why does the fucking media cover for this idiot!! Why?!!!

Why don't they just PRINT WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID!!!???

The media is not here to clean up after the president, and wipe the drool off of his chin!!! If he can't form a coherent sentence, the American public should know it!!

Jesus Christ! Can the whoredom of the press sink any lower!!!

[arcane1]

14. no shit, I want the world to read the actual idiot's remarks!

if the President can't complete a coherent sentence, that's his problem, we don't need the media propping him up by making him appear competent

and besides, we did a lot more than "enforce the no fly zone" once Bush took over. We got to where we were bombing S Iraq on a weekly basis. We here at DU were getting to the point where we were having a hard time believing there are that many radar facilities in S Iraq!

[jayfish]

27. Fucking State Run Media. (Quote And Transcript Inside)

I heard that answer on Malloy last night and it's unbelievable that they would doctor his words for him. How did they know what the hell Shrubya was talking about? Did they have to get a clarification after the event? Anyway here is the quote and a transcript of the event.

"Like the previous administration, we were for regime change. And in the initial stage of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with Desert Badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks. And so we were fashioning policy along those lines. And then all of a sudden, September the 11th hit."

Transcript

Jay

[Matilda]

40. He is still lying about the reasons for war, according to the Fox transcip

Quote: "...we made it clear that Saddam Hussein should disarm.

"And like he had done with a lot of previous resolutions, he ignored
the world's demands".

That is a blatant lie, and he wasn't called on it.

[jayfish]

45. Is He Ever...

called on anything?

Jay

[PAMod]

32. I'm sorry, that made me laugh. I know it is not funny, but the way you...

said it made me spit coffee all over the place.

People have no clue how bad this president is. I have (otherwise) intellegent friends that defend this boob and make fun of real Americans like Wes Clark & John Kerry.

It is really unbelievable & unfunny.

But you made me laugh.

[daleo]

8. LIHOP seems more and more likely

The most benign version is along the lines, "let's let down our guard a bit and see what happens. It could give us the causus belli we are looking for to deal with Saddam."

[arcane1]

15. the PNAC papers said a "new Pearl Harbor" was NEEDED

or as Bush put in his diary on the night of 9/11 "the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century"

[peterh]

9. I see they’ve cleaned up his response….

No mention of “desert badger” in this item :eyes:

[Robb]

28. Oh, let's post it again

Drug humor being so in vogue nowadays: :)

"Like the previous administration, we were for regime change. And in the initial stage of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with Desert Badger or flyovers and fly-betweens and looks. And so we were fashioning policy along those lines. And then, all of a sudden, Sept. 11 hit."


...Ah yes. Operation Desert Badger. Who can forget? The patches, the songs, the camaraderie. (Mushroom, MUSHROOM!!)

And the flyovers, and the fly-betweens, and the looks. Those were the days, my friends. :evilgrin:

[shanti]

48. lol

funny stuff, dude!

[twilight]

10. well DUH!

Are people's memories so incredibly short that they don't remember that * bombed Baghdad the first week he was in office! Of course the plans we "on the table". Why else would * have bombed Baghdad about one week after the inaugration? Sheeshhhhhh!!!!



:dem: :kick:

[Say_What]

12. Oops. If they were following Clinton, then why didn't they

do something about the information on the upcoming 9/11? The lies will eventually carry them all out with the swill they've brought with them.

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. Regime "change" my *ss- - it was regime ELIMINATION !!

.
.
. . There was no other "regime" or body of adequate power and organization in Iraq to "effect" a change.

I want my car to run better, right ? ?

If I'm gonna "fix" it,

I'm damm well gonna have another engine lined up before I take the old oil-burner, gas guzzler OUT !

Right now Iraq is just "running" on another "used" engine that wasn't running so good on it's own anyhow!

The BFEE just replaced "bad" engine with another "bad" engine

and basically, McGuyver'd a Chevy to fit a Ford -

Not much WONDER it ain't working !!

FUBAR for sure !

[CookieD]

16. There is a difference between Regime Change and ...

FORCIBLE Regime Change. How come no one has seized upon that? :shrug:

[David Zephyr]

17. Bush Just Made Fools of His Own Aids Who Rushed to Deny This

Paula Zahn did everything, but call O'Neill a liar the other evening.

But the most revealing thing is how that GW --- after probably being informed by Rove that O'Neill would be proven to be telling the truth because there existed too much evidence to support his accusation --- let his some of his highest level aids go onto national television and publicly deny that Bush had supported waging a hot war with Iraq from the earliest days of his administration.

They must feel a little burned and shamed this morning with Bush now admitting what he could not deny.

[Say_What]

19. 60 minutes TRANSCRIPT

<clips>

...Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents.

“Everything's there: Memoranda to the President, handwritten "thank you" notes, 100-page documents. Stuff that's sensitive,” says Suskind, adding that in some cases, it included transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council meetings. “You don’t get higher than that.”

And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

[wabeewoman]

22. And they're trying to nail O'Neill

which of course, everyone here knew they'd do. What's interesting is he should be untouchable about the information because he requested it and it was their job to NOT give him classified information. He is backtracking already though saying the line about it being Clinton's policy, etc... Josh Marshall had a great line about it:

Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.

Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.

Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless.

-- Josh Marshall

[BenDavid]

25. The question should

be asked of O'Neill since he stated he attended all the security briefings of the Administration, Were Al Queda or Osama Bin Laden ever discussed in these meetings? Hell the reporters are over-looking the important question.

[TacticalPeek]

33. Excellent point!

Did O'Neill hear discussions of standing down the subs that lurked waiting for intel and targeting on UBL?

Did he see Clinton's NSC/Sandy Berger red alert warning about the UBL threat crumpled and tossed in the thrash to a course of "ABC! ABC!"?

I may have to buy this book.

But will the press read it, or even hire someone to read it for them? They may as well hire someone to think for them. There are great deals to be had in China and India now, I hear.

[Fleshdancer]

30. It's time for Clinton to step up to the mic

Certainly Clinton doesn't like the fact that this administration is using him to weasel out of the fact that they LIED to the country.

[worldgonekrazy]

37. He certainly SHOULD, but my bet is he won't. Why?

I can just never figure out Clinton and his motives. Is he trying to stay out of the fray and let Bush dig himself into a giant hole he can never get out of? Is he mostly complicit with the Bush agenda, as per the largely bi-partisan foreign policy consesus? I just can't tell.

[aquart]

42. Because if Clinton enters the fray

We won't know the names of the Democrats running for President.

They will use Bill to deny airtime to our frontrunners, and our candidate.

Is that a good enough reason to stay out of this?

[aquart]

43. Because if Clinton enters the fray

We won't know the names of the Democrats running for President.

They will use Bill to deny airtime to our frontrunners, and our candidate.

Is that a good enough reason to stay out of this?

[DrBB]

38. I don't BELIEVE the fucking CORRECTION in that piece

I mean, I'm glad they took the angle they did of course. But look at how they went out of their way to render coherent what was actually one of the most stumble-bum drunk-tongue statements the Flying Chimp has ever made.

I can't put it any better than in my LTTE to today's NYTimes, to wit:

You quote Mr Bush as saying the following, in response to his former Treasury Secretary's assertion that the Iraq invasion was intended from the beginning of Bush's administration ("Bush Disputes Ex-Official's Claim That Iraq War Was Early Goal," Jan. 13, 2004):

"And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with desert badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks, and so we were fashioning policy along those lines."

"Desert badger"?

It hardly helps Mr Bush's case that he can not explain his own policies without lapsing into incoherence.

on edit: added bolding. That's what he actually said. Believe it or not. And even THAT is probably cleaned up a bit.

[DrBB]

39. My letter to Seattle PI

Although I have no objection to the overall thrust of your piece "Bush admits he targeted Saddam from the start," I am curious as to why you felt that Mr Bush needed your help to respond coherently to his former Treasury Secretary's charges.

You quote Bush as saying "And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with (enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq) and so we were fashioning policy along those lines." In fact, what he actually said was "we were dealing with desert badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks, and so we were fashioning policy along those lines."

It isn't really your job to make him sound rational while spouting nonsense, is it? It is true that a president who lapses into bizarre gibberish when trying to defend his own policies has not done himself any favors. But that's his problem, not yours, unless I'm mistaken.

Always try to keep these things before the public as long as possible--LTTEs can't hurt.

[Barad Simith]

44. APPLAUSE

[chelaque liberal]

41. I wonder what Tony Blair's reaction to this is?

If I remember correctly the British people were strongly opposed to regime change. Blair had to sell them the bill of goods about WMD to get the support he did.