WP: Behind Diplomatic Moves, Military Plan Is Launched (Woodward excerpt)

[kskiska]

'We're Going to Have to Go to War,' Bush Said to Rice

By Bob Woodward

Shortly after New Year's Day 2003, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a private moment with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Bush felt the effort to get United Nations weapons inspections inside Iraq on an aggressive track to make Saddam Hussein crack was not working. "This pressure isn't holding together," Bush told her.

The media reports of smiling Iraqis leading inspectors around, opening up buildings and saying, "See, there's nothing here," infuriated Bush, who then would read intelligence reports showing the Iraqis were moving and concealing things. It wasn't clear what was being moved, but it looked to Bush as if Hussein was about to fool the world again. It looked as if the inspections effort was not sufficiently aggressive, would take months or longer, and was likely doomed to fail.

"I was concerned people would focus on not Saddam, not the danger that he posed, not his deception, but focus on the process and thereby Saddam would be able to kind of skate through once again," Bush recalled in an interview last December.

"I felt stressed," he added. All the holiday parties at the White House had not helped. "My jaw muscle got so tight. And it was not just because I was smiling and shaking so many hands. There was a lot of tension during that last holiday season."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19691-2004Apr17.html

[aquart]

1. When did they tell Woodward all this?

In the summer of 2002, Bush approved $700 million worth of "preparatory tasks" in the Persian Gulf region such as upgrading airfields, bases, fuel pipelines and munitions storage depots to accommodate a massive U.S. troop deployment. The Bush administration funded the projects from a supplemental appropriations bill for the war in Afghanistan and old appropriations, keeping Congress unaware of the reprogramming of money and the eventual cost.

Did they think the war would be such a triumphant success by the time the book was published that we would read of these criminal acts and exclaim, "What bold leadership! John Wayne might have done it!"

Honestly, most of what I've read so far looks canned. As if they were feeding Woodward the approved story.

[dennis4868]

2. I have not read the book....

but it seems reading passages from it, Woodward makes Bush out to be this sincere guy working hard for all of us. But woodward cant fool us. We all know that Bushit is a fucking lair along with his criminal thugs....this woodward is an asshole to be sure. Why would anyone read this shit?