War Without End

Alpha

Bush Says He Can't Think of Any Mistakes
Helen Thomas

President Bush told his news conference that he couldn't think of any mistakes he has made since he was inaugurated.

The president appeared totally flummoxed when asked to name one. He hemmed and hawed and aw-shucked, suggested that such a question was better left to historians. He complained about being asked such a question "in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer."

He then veered toward humility. "I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have." But he said he just wasn't "as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

Well, let me try to help. Let's start with his invasion of Iraq.

That Bush mistake is one we will be paying for indefinitely, both in the human cost -- not to mention the diplomatic and financial price ($121 billion so far).

The mistake was the false premise underlying the U.S. invasion, a trumped-up claim that Bush insisted on repeating Tuesday night when he claimed that Saddam Hussein was "a threat to the region, he was a threat to the United States." And he had weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent danger to us.

"Of course I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet," he told reporters after a year-long search has turned up no evidence of such weapons. "But I still know Saddam Hussein was a threat. He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people."

As for the weapons, the president said wistfully: "They could still be there."

The president has a large taxpayer-financed staff that is supposed to prepare him for likely questions he would face at a news conference. But either Bush or the staff flubbed a question that every reporter in Washington could have predicted: Would he apologize for the government failures that led to the Sept. 11 attacks?

The question was a natural because Richard Clarke, his former counter-terrorism director, had offered such an apology last month.

But don't expect one from the president. He wasn't responsible for 9-11 -- Osama bin Laden was, Bush replied.

Meanwhile, the American casualty toll continues to mount in Iraq and is beginning to get the attention of the American people.

And though he rejects the analogy, the U.S. involvement in Iraq is starting to look like the Vietnam quagmire.

Asked about any parallel with Vietnam, Bush dismissed such a comparison, saying it would send the wrong message to the troops and the wrong message to the enemy. That sure reminds me of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

Even more reminiscent was Bush's constant refrain: "We are going to stay the course." It was 1967 and 1970 all over again.

Bush wants us to forget the promises that his administration made before the war that happy Iraqis would welcome the U.S. military invaders as liberators.

And he shamelessly continues his faltering effort to depict the invasion of Iraq as somehow connected to the war on terrorism. In doing so, Bush is trying to get off the hook for failing to keep his eye on the ball, which would have been to focus on the fight in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Iraq -- which should have been a sideshow -- has dominated his radar screen since he became president.

Both Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill have attested to Bush's determination to get rid of Saddam Hussein from day one. It was a policy in search of justification. And his ongoing attempts to connect the 9-11 tragedy with Saddam Hussein would be laughable if they weren't so blatantly dishonest.

Bush acknowledges he faces tough times and that he plans to send more troops to Iraq and they will be there for an indefinite period, probably long after the United States returns sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30.

Maybe after June, the president will find time to ponder whether he has made any mistakes.

Copyright Hearst Newspapers 2004 All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/3010576/detail.html

(Helen Thomas can be reached via e-mail: hthomas@hearstdc.com.

Alpha

Subj: The Big Lie: Bush's plan to drag U.S. into war
Date: 4/17/04 11:10:14 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: LAdams

EXPLOSIVE DETAILS IN WOODWARD BOOK SHOW BUSH OBSESSED WITH IRAQ
Date: 4/17/04 5:53:36 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Cork Col

In the first installment of Bob Woodward's explosive book, "Plan of Attack," the veteran journalist uses three-and-one-half hours of an interview with President Bush to show a President who was obsessed with going to war with Iraq, even as diplomatic relations were going on with the UN in what best can be described as a dog 'n pony show by the Bush administration. The book also paints Vice President Cheney as the "steamroller" who was the prime motivating force behind Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq, and how Cheney and Sec. of State Colin Powell clashed over the Iraq attack plan and to this day do not speak to each other. It is also clear from reading the first installment that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was "out of the loop" and was virtually kept in the dark as plans to invade Iraq were being made behind closed doors in the White House. What is also abundantly clear is both former Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill and former counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke were 100% right in their statements in their own books that Bush was bound and determined to go to war with Iraq, and was looking for some way Saddam Hussein could be linked to 9/11. However, the most chilling part of the initial installment is when President Bush talks about receiving advice from his father, and he dismisses the advice from his father by stating he felt compelled to go to war with Iraq because God has told him to do it.

Bill Corcoran
Chicago, Illinois
corkcol@aol.com

===================================

washingtonpost.com
Bush Began to Plan War Three Months After 9/11
Book Says President Called Secrecy Vital
By William Hamilton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 17, 2004; Page A01

Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.

The intensive war planning throughout 2002 created its own momentum, according to "Plan of Attack" by Bob Woodward, fueled in part by the CIA's conclusion that Saddam Hussein could not be removed from power except through a war and CIA Director George J. Tenet's assurance to the president that it was a "slam dunk" case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

In 31/2 hours of interviews with Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post, Bush said that the secret planning was necessary to avoid "enormous international angst and domestic speculation" and that "war is my absolute last option."

Adding to the momentum, Woodward writes, was the pressure from advocates of war inside the administration. Vice President Cheney, whom Woodward describes as a "powerful, steamrolling force," led that group and had developed what some of his colleagues felt was a "fever" about removing Hussein by force.

By early January 2003, Bush had made up his mind to take military action against Iraq, according to the book. But Bush was so concerned that the government of his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, might fall because of his support for Bush that he delayed the war's start until March 19 here (March 20 in Iraq) because Blair asked him to seek a second resolution from the United Nations. Bush later gave Blair the option of withholding British troops from combat, which Blair rejected. "I said I'm with you. I mean it," Blair replied.

Woodward describes a relationship between Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that became so strained Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms. Cheney engaged in a bitter and eventually winning struggle over Iraq with Powell, an opponent of war who believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and treated ambiguous intelligence as fact.

Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and "always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."

Before the war with Iraq, Powell bluntly told Bush that if he sent U.S. troops there "you're going to be owning this place." Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, used to refer to what they called "the Pottery Barn rule" on Iraq: "You break it, you own it," according to Woodward.

But, when asked personally by the president, Powell agreed to make the U.S. case against Hussein at the United Nations in February 2003, a presentation described by White House communications director Dan Bartlett as "the Powell buy-in." Bush wanted someone with Powell's credibility to present the evidence that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a case the president had initially found less than convincing when presented to him by CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin at a White House meeting on Dec. 21, 2002.

McLaughlin's version used communications intercepts, satellite photos, diagrams and other intelligence. "Nice try," Bush said when the CIA official was finished, according to the book. "I don't think this quite -- it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."

He then turned to Tenet, McLaughlin's boss, and said, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD, and this is the best we've got?"
"It's a slam-dunk case," Tenet replied, throwing his arms in the air. Bush pressed him again. "George, how confident are you?"

"Don't worry, it's a slam dunk," Tenet repeated.

Tenet later told associates he should have said the evidence on weapons was not ironclad, according to Woodward. After the CIA director made a rare public speech in February defending the CIA's handling of intelligence about Iraq, Bush called him to say he had done "a great job."

In his previous book, "Bush at War," Woodward described the administration's response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: its decision to attack the Taliban government in Afghanistan and its increasing focus on Iraq. His new book is a narrative history of how Bush and his administration launched the war on Iraq. It is based on interviews with more than 75 people, including Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

On Nov. 21, 2001, 72 days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush directed Rumsfeld to begin planning for war with Iraq. "Let's get started on this," Bush recalled saying. "And get Tommy Franks looking at what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to." He also asked: Could this be done on a basis that would not be terribly noticeable?

Bush received his first detailed briefing on Iraq war plans five weeks later, on Dec. 28, when Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, visited Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex. Bush told reporters afterward that they had discussed Afghanistan.

While it has been previously reported that Bush directed the Pentagon to begin considering options for an invasion of Iraq immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush's order to Rumsfeld began an intensive process in which Franks worked in secret with a small staff, talked almost daily with the defense secretary and met about once a month with Bush.

This week, the president acknowledged that the violent uprising against U.S. troops in Iraq has resulted in "a tough, tough series of weeks for the American people." But he insisted that his course of action in Iraq has been the correct one in language that echoed what he told Woodward more than four months ago.

In two interviews with Woodward in December, Bush minimized the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction, expressed no doubts about his decision to invade Iraq, and enunciated an activist role for the United States based on it being "the beacon for freedom in the world."

"I believe we have a duty to free people," Bush told Woodward. "I would hope we wouldn't have to do it militarily, but we have a duty."

The president described praying as he walked outside the Oval Office after giving the order to begin combat operations against Iraq, and the powerful role his religious beliefs played throughout that time.

"Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. . . . I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for personal strength and for forgiveness."

The president told Woodward: "I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think is right. I was going to act. And if it could cost the presidency, I fully realized that. But I felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do that I was prepared to do so."

Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

The president told Woodward he was cooperating on his book because he wanted the story of how the United States had gone to war in Iraq to be told. He said it would be a blueprint of historical significance that "will enable other leaders, if they feel like they have to go to war, to spare innocent citizens and their lives."

"But the news of this, in my judgment," Bush added, "the big news out of this isn't how George W. makes decisions. To me the big news is America has changed how you fight and win war, and therefore makes it easier to keep the peace in the long run. And that's the historical significance of this book, as far as I'm concerned."

Bush's critics have questioned whether he and his administration were focused on Iraq rather than terrorism when they took office early in 2001 and even after the Sept. 11 attacks. Former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill and former White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke have made that charge in recently published memoirs.

According to "Plan of Attack," it was Cheney who was particularly focused on Iraq before the terrorist attacks. Before Bush's inauguration, Cheney sent word to departing Defense Secretary William S. Cohen that he wanted the traditional briefing given an incoming president to be a serious "discussion about Iraq and different options." Bush specifically assigned Cheney to focus as vice president on intelligence scenarios, particularly the possibility that terrorists would obtain nuclear or biological weapons.

Early discussions among the administration's national security "principals" -- Cheney, Powell, Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- and their deputies focused on how to weaken Hussein diplomatically. But Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz proposed sending in the military to seize Iraq's southern oil fields and establish the area as a foothold from which opposition groups could overthrow Hussein.

Powell dismissed the plan as "lunacy," according to Woodward, and told Bush what he thought. "You don't have to be bullied into this," Powell said.

Bush told Woodward he never saw a formal plan for a quick strike. "The idea may have floated around as an interesting nugget to chew on," he said.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., according to Woodward, compared Bush to a circus rider with one foot on a "diplomacy" steed and the other on a "war" steed, both heading toward the same destination: regime change in Iraq. When it was clear that diplomacy would not get him to his goal, Card said, Bush let go of that horse and rode the one called war.

But as the planning proceeded, the administration began taking steps that Woodward describes as helping to make war inevitable. On Feb. 16, 2002, Bush signed an intelligence finding that directed the CIA to help the military overthrow Hussein and conduct operations within Iraq. At the time, according to "Plan of Attack," the CIA had only four informants in Iraq and told Bush that it would be impossible to overthrow Hussein through a coup.

In July, a CIA team entered northern Iraq and began to lay the groundwork for covert action, eventually recruiting an extensive network of 87 Iraqi informants code-named ROCKSTARS who gave the U.S. detailed information on Iraqi forces, including a CD-ROM containing the personnel files of the Iraq Special Security Organization (SSO).
Woodward writes that the CIA essentially became an advocate for war first by asserting that covert action would be ineffective, and later by saying that its new network of spies would be endangered if the United States did not attack Iraq. Another factor in the gathering momentum were the forces the military began shifting to Kuwait, the pre-positioning that was a key component of Franks's planning.

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.

During that summer, Powell and Cheney engaged in some of their sharpest debates. Powell argued that the United States should take its case to the United Nations, which Cheney said was a waste of time. Woodward had described some of that conflict in "Bush at War."

Among Powell's allies was Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Bush's father, who wrote an op-ed piece against the war for the Wall Street Journal. After it was published in August 2002, Powell thanked Scowcroft for giving him "some running room." But Rice called Scowcroft to tell her former boss that it looked as if he was speaking for Bush's father and that the article was a slap at the incumbent president.

Despite Powell's admonitions to the president, "Plan of Attack" suggests it was Blair who may have played a more critical role in persuading Bush to seek a resolution from the United Nations. At a meeting with the president at Camp David in early September, Blair backed Bush on Iraq but said he needed to show he had tried U.N. diplomacy. Bush agreed, and later referred to the Camp David session with Blair as "the cojones meeting," using a colloquial Spanish term for courage.

After the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the resumption of weapons inspections in Iraq, Bush became increasingly impatient with their effectiveness and the role of chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. Shortly after New Year's 2003, he told Rice at his Texas ranch: "We're not winning. Time is not on our side here. Probably going to have to, we're going to have to go to war."

Bush said much the same thing to White House political adviser Karl Rove, who had gone to Crawford to brief him on plans for his reelection campaign. In the next 10 days, Bush also made his decision known to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Bandar, who helped arrange Saudi cooperation with the U.S. military, feared Saudi interests would be damaged if Bush did not follow through on attacking Hussein, and became another advocate for war.

According to "Plan of Attack," Bush asked Rice and his longtime communications adviser, Karen Hughes, whether he should attack Iraq, but he did not specifically ask Powell or Rumsfeld. "I could tell what they thought," the president said. "I didn't need to ask their opinion about Saddam Hussein or how to deal with Saddam Hussein. If you were sitting where I sit, you could be pretty clear."

Rumsfeld, whom Woodward interviewed for three hours, is portrayed in the book as a "defense technocrat" intimately involved with details of the war planning but not focused on the need to attack Iraq in the same way that Cheney and some of Rumsfeld's subordinates such as Wolfowitz and Feith were.

Bush told Powell of his decision in a brief meeting in the White House. Evidently concerned about Powell's reaction, he said, "Are you with me on this? I think I have to do this. I want you with me."

"I'll do the best I can," Powell answered. "Yes, sir, I will support you. I'm with you, Mr. President."

Bush said he did not remember asking the question of his father, former president George H.W. Bush, who fought Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But, he added that the two had discussed developments in Iraq.

"You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to," Bush said.

Describing what the 41st president said to him about Iraq, the 43rd president told Woodward:

"It was less 'Here's how you have to take care of the guy [Hussein]' and more 'I've been through what you've been through and I know what's happening and therefore I love you' would be a more accurate way to describe it."

2004 The Washington Post Company

Alpha

Subj: Bush to Rice: "We gotta go to war!"
Date: 4/17/04 12:14:24 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: LAdams

HOST NOTE: Be sure to watch 60 Minutes this Sunday. Bob Woodward will be interviewed about his latest Bush book, Plan of Attack. L.A.

We're Going to Have to Go to War,' Bush Told Rice
By Bob Woodward
WASHINGTON POST

This is the first of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq. (Copyright Simon & Schuster, 2004)

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."

There was another factor at work that was not publicly known. Sensitive intelligence coverage on U.N. inspections chief Hans Blix indicated that he was not reporting everything and not doing all the things he maintained he was doing. Some in Bush's war cabinet believed Blix was a liar.

"How is this happening?" Bush asked Rice. "Saddam is going to get stronger."

Blix had told Rice, "I have never complained about your military pressure. I think it's a good thing." She relayed this to the president.

"How long does he think I can do this?" Bush asked. "A year? I can't. The United States can't stay in this position while Saddam plays games with the inspectors."

"You have to follow through on your threat," Rice said. "If you're going to carry out coercive diplomacy, you have to live with that decision."

"He's getting more confident, not less," Bush said of Hussein. "He can manipulate the international system again. We're not winning.

"Time is not on our side here," Bush told Rice. "Probably going to have to, we're going to have to go to war."

In Rice's mind, this was the moment the president decided the United States would go to war with Iraq. Military planning had been underway for more than a year even as Bush sought a diplomatic solution through the United Nations. He would continue those efforts, at least publicly, for 10 more weeks, but he had reached a point of no return.

The president also informed Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, of his decision over the holidays. Rove had gone to Crawford to brief Bush on the confidential plan for Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. While Laura Bush sat reading a book, Rove gave a PowerPoint presentation on the campaign's strategy, themes and timetable.

Opening his laptop, he displayed for Bush in bold letters on a dark blue background:

PERSONA:

Strong Leader

Bold Action

Big Ideas

Peace in World

More Compassionate America

Cares About People Like Me

Leads a Strong Team

All things being equal, the president asked, when would you like to begin the campaign and active fundraising?

Rove said he wanted the president to start that February or March and begin raising the money, probably $200 million. He had a schedule. In February, March and April 2003, there would be between 12 and 16 fundraisers.

"We got a war coming," the president told Rove flatly, "and you're just going to have to wait." He had decided. "The moment is coming." The president did not give a date, but he left the impression with Rove that it would be January or February or March at the latest.

"Remember the problem with your dad's campaign," Rove replied. "A lot of people said he got started too late."

"I understand," Bush said. "I'll tell you when I'm comfortable with you starting."

Bush Orders a War Plan
Rice was the only member of his war cabinet whom Bush directly asked for a recommendation of whether to go to war.

"What do you think?" he had asked her a few weeks before. "Should we do this?"

"Yes," she said. "Because it isn't American credibility on the line, it is the credibility of everybody that this gangster can yet again beat the international system." As important as credibility was, she said, "Credibility should never drive you to do something you shouldn't do." But this was much bigger, she advised, something that should be done. "To let this threat in this part of the world play volleyball with the international community this way will come back to haunt us someday. That is the reason to do it."

Other than Rice, Bush said he didn't need to ask the principal advisers whether they thought he should go to war. He knew what Vice President Cheney thought, and he decided not to ask Secretary of State Colin L. Powell or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"I could tell what they thought," the president recalled. "I didn't need to ask them their opinion about Saddam Hussein. If you were sitting where I sit, you could be pretty clear. I think we've got an environment where people feel free to express themselves."

One person not around was Karen Hughes, one of his top advisers and longtime communications director. Hughes, who had resigned the previous summer to return to Texas, probably knew how Bush thought and talked as much as anyone.

"I asked Karen," the president recalled. "She said if you go to war, exhaust all opportunities to achieve [regime change] peacefully. And she was right. She actually captured my own sentiments."

More than a year before -- on Nov. 21, 2001 -- Bush had told Rumsfeld that he wanted to develop a plan for war in Iraq. Since that time the defense secretary had been working closely with Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, and other U.S. commanders, as well as Bush and other members of the war cabinet to develop a plan even as Bush pursed diplomacy through the United Nations.

At times, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. thought of Bush as a circus rider with one foot on a "diplomacy" steed and his other on the "war" steed, both reins in his hands, leading down a path to regime change. Each horse had blinders on. It was now clear that diplomacy would not get him to his goal, so Bush had let go of that horse and was standing only on the war steed.

Rumsfeld had been trying to put himself in the president's shoes, attempting to make sure that Bush didn't get so far out in words, body language or mental state that he couldn't get back from a decision to go to war as the United States built up forces around Iraq.

On the other hand, Rumsfeld felt there was a time when the president should not want to walk back, and really could not. That time would be well before Bush had to decide to put Special Operations Forces inside Iraq, the point of no return identified by Franks.

"I can remember trying to give him as early a clue as possible that that was coming down the road," Rumsfeld recalled in an interview.

"There comes a moment as all these things are happening," he added, "when we have to look a neighboring country in the eye, and they have to make a decision that puts them at risk. And at that moment, the president needs to know that."

Back in Washington in early January 2003, Bush took Rumsfeld aside.

"Look, we're going to have to do this, I'm afraid," he said. "I don't see how we're going to get him to a position where he will do something in a manner that's consistent with the U.N. requirements, and we've got to make an assumption that he will not."

It was enough of a decision for Rumsfeld. He asked to bring in some key foreign players.

The president gave his approval but pressed Rumsfeld again. When is my last decision point?

"When your people, Mr. President, look people in the eye and tell them you're going."

One of the key players that had to be notified and brought along was Saudi Arabia. U.S. forces would have to be sent through and from Saudi territory into Iraq. Rescue, communications and refueling support were not going to be enough. Of the five other countries on Iraq's border, only Kuwait and Jordan supported a military operation. The 500 miles of Saudi-Iraqi border were critical.

So on Saturday, Jan. 11, Cheney invited Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, to his West Wing office. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were also there.

Prince Bandar had served during four American presidencies. At age 53, Bandar was almost a fifth estate in Washington, amplifying Saudi influence and wealth. He insisted on dealing directly with presidents and is almost family to Bush's father, former president George H. W. Bush. And he had maintained his special entree to the Oval Office under this President Bush.

Sitting on the edge of the table in Cheney's office, Myers took out a large map labeled TOP SECRET NOFORN. The NOFORN meant NO FOREIGN -- classified material not to be seen by any foreign nation.

Myers explained that the first part of the battle plan would be a massive aerial bombing campaign over several days against Iraq's Republican Guard divisions, the security services and command and control of Hussein's forces. A land attack would follow through Kuwait, plus a northern front through Turkey with the 4th Infantry Division if Turkey approved it. Included was massive use of Special Forces and intelligence paramilitary teams to secure every place in Iraq from which Hussein could launch a missile or airplane against Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Israel.

Special Forces and intelligence operatives would distribute $300 million to local Iraqi tribal leaders, religious leaders and the Iraqi armed forces.

The Saudi-Iraqi border would have to be covered. Special Forces, intelligence teams and other strikes would have to be launched from there. If there were alternatives, Myers said, they would not be asking the Saudis.

Bandar knew that his country could create a cover for the arrival of U.S. forces by closing a civilian airport at Al Jawf in the northern desert, flying Saudi helicopters day and night as a routine border patrol for a week, and then withdrawing. The U.S. Special Forces could set up a base there that might not attract much attention.

Staring intently at the 2-by-3-foot Top Secret map, Bandar, a former fighter pilot, asked a few questions about air operations. Could he have a copy of the large map so he could brief Crown Prince Abdullah? he asked, referring to the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.

"Above my pay grade," Myers said.

"We'll give you all the information you want," Rumsfeld said. As for the map, he added, "I would rather not give it to you, but you can take notes if you want."

"No, no, it's not important. Just let me look at it," Bandar said. He tried to take it all in -- the large ground thrusts, the location of Special Forces or intelligence teams all designated on the map.

"You can count on this," Rumsfeld said, pointing to the map. "You can take that to the bank. This is going to happen."

"What is the chance of Saddam surviving this?" Bandar asked. He believed Hussein was intent on killing everyone involved at a high level with the 1991 Persian Gulf War, including himself.

Rumsfeld and Myers didn't answer.

"Saddam, this time, will be out, period?" Bandar asked skeptically. "What will happen to him?"

Cheney, who had been quiet as usual, replied, "Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast."

"I am convinced now that this is something I can take to my Prince Abdullah," Bandar said, "and think I can convince him. But I cannot go and tell him that Myers and Rumsfeld and you told me. I have to carry a message from the president."

"I'll get back to you," the vice president replied. After Bandar had left, Rumsfeld voiced some concern about the vice president's "toast" remark. "Jesus Christ, what was that all about, Dick?"

"I didn't want to leave any doubt in his mind what we're planning to do," Cheney said.

In his car, Bandar scribbled out details from what he had seen on the map. When he got home, he took a large blank map of the region that had been supplied by the CIA and began reconstructing the plan piece by piece.

The next day, Sunday, Rice called Bandar to invite him to meet with the president the following day, Monday, Jan. 13. At the meeting, the president told Bandar that he was receiving advice and reports from some in his administration that in the event of war he would have to contend with a massive Arab and Islamic reaction that would put American interests at risk.

"Mr. President, you're assuming you're attacking Saudi Arabia and trying to capture King Fahd," Bandar said. "This is Saddam Hussein. People are not going to shed tears over Saddam Hussein, but if he's attacked one more time by America and he survives and stays in power after you've finished this, whatever it is, yes, everybody will follow his word. If they say attack the American Embassy, they will go and attack it."

Before the Gulf War in 1991, Bandar recalled for the president, "Go back to look at what was said to your father -- the Arab world will rise from the Atlantic to the Gulf!" Well, that didn't happen then, and it would not happen this time, he said. The problem would be if Hussein survived. The Saudis needed assurance that Hussein was going to be toast.

"You got the briefing from Dick, Rummy and General Myers?" the president asked.

"Yes."

"Any questions for me?"

No, Mr. President.

"That is the message I want you to carry for me to the crown prince," Bush said. "The message you're taking is mine, Bandar."

"That's fine, Mr. President."

Bandar believed it was exactly what Cheney had told Bush to say.

"Anything else for me?"

No, Mr. President.
Bandar Told Ahead of Powell
One of Rice's jobs was, as she called it, "to read the secretaries": Powell and Rumsfeld. Since the president had told Rumsfeld about his decision to go to war, he had better tell Powell, and fast. Powell was close to Prince Bandar, who now was informed of the decision.

"Mr. President," Rice said, "if you're getting to a place that you really think this might happen, you need to call Colin in and talk to him." Powell had the most difficult job, keeping the diplomatic track alive.

So that Monday, Jan. 13, Powell and Bush met in the Oval Office. The president was sitting in his regular chair in front of the fireplace, and the secretary was in the chair reserved for the visiting leader or most senior U.S. official. For once, neither Cheney nor Rice was hovering.

Bush complimented Powell for his hard work on the diplomatic front. "The inspections are not getting us there," the president said, getting down to business. The U.N. inspectors were just sort of stumbling around, and Hussein was showing no intention of real compliance. "I really think I'm going to have to do this." The president said he had made up his mind on war. The United States should go to war.

"You're sure?" Powell asked.

Yes, said Bush.

"You understand the consequences," Powell said in a half question. For nearly six months, he had been hammering on this theme -- that the United States would be taking down a regime, would have to govern Iraq, and the ripple effect in the Middle East and the world could not be predicted. The run-up to war had sucked nearly all the oxygen from every other issue in foreign relations. War would surely get all the air and attention.

Yeah, I do, the president answered.

"You know that you're going to be owning this place?" Powell said, reminding Bush of what he had told him at a dinner the previous August in which Powell had made the case against military action in Iraq. An invasion would mean assuming the hopes, aspirations and all the troubles of Iraq. Powell wasn't sure whether Bush had fully understood the meaning and consequences of total ownership.

But I think I have to do this, the president said.

Right, Powell said.

I just want to let you know that, Bush said, making it clear this was not a discussion, but the president informing one of his Cabinet members of his decision. The fork in the road had been reached and Bush had chosen war.

As the only person in Bush's inner circle who was seriously and actively pressing the diplomatic track, Powell figured the president wanted to make sure he would support the war. It was in some way a gut check, but Powell didn't feel the president was making a loyalty check. No way on God's earth could he walk away at that point. It would have been an unthinkable act of disloyalty to the president, to Powell's own soldier's code, to the United States military, and mostly to the several hundred thousand who would be going to war.

"Are you with me on this?" the president asked him now. "I think I have to do this. I want you with me."

"I'll do the best I can," Powell answered. "Yes, sir, I will support you. I'm with you, Mr. President."

"Time to put your war uniform on," the president said to the retired general.

In all the discussions, meetings, chats and back-and-forth, in Powell's grueling duels with Rumsfeld and Defense, the president had never once asked Powell, Would you do this? What's your overall advice? The bottom line?

Perhaps the president feared the answer. Perhaps Powell feared giving it. It would, after all, have been an opportunity to say he disagreed. But they had not reached that core question, and Powell would not push. He would not intrude on that most private of presidential space -- where a president made decisions of war and peace -- unless he was invited. He had not been invited.

Bush's meeting with Powell lasted 12 minutes. "It was a very cordial conversation," the president recalled. "It wasn't a long conversation," he noted. "There wasn't much debate: It looks like we're headed to war."

The president stated emphatically that though he had asked Powell to be with him and support him in a war, "I didn't need his permission."
Poland Signs On to the War
Before a meeting with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski the next day, Jan. 14, Bush's frustration again flared in public as he shifted position on the time remaining to Hussein. While eight days earlier he had said publicly that the Iraqi president has "got time," he told reporters that morning, "Time is running out on Saddam Hussein."

Bush knew he had no better friend on the European continent than the popular, second-term Polish president who had agreed to send troops to the war. The Bushes had hosted Kwasniewski and his wife for a rare State Dinner the previous July.

"The level of anti-Americanism is extremely high," Kwasniewski said at their private meeting. He had a serious political problem because of his support for Bush.

"Success helps change public opinion," Bush said. "Should we commit troops, we'll feed the people of Iraq." He said it as if that humanitarian gesture might have an impact on public opinion in Poland. He said there was a protocol a country could follow to show the world that it was ridding itself of unconventional weapons -- one that South Africa had followed, visibly and aggressively opening up records and facilities for inspections. Hussein had not.

"In my judgment it's time to move soon, but we won't act precipitously," Bush said, adding, "but time is running out. It's sooner rather than later."

"We will win," the Polish president said, but sounding like Colin Powell, he added plaintively, "but what are the consequences?" After a pause, he continued, "You need wide, broad international support. We are with you, don't worry about it. The risk is the U.N. will collapse. What will replace it?"

These were hard questions that Bush sidestepped, saying only, "We believe that Islam like Christianity can grow in a free and democratic manner."

For Bush, the important things were that Poland would be with him and would supply troops.

Mark Malseed contributed to this report.

Alpha

Subj: Powell: "Mr. President, Iraq will turn into a quagmire"
Date: 4/17/04 11:20:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: LAdams727

Powell Said to Have Warned Bush Before the War, a New Book Says
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: April 17, 2004, NY Times

WASHINGTON, April 16 — Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war, citing what Mr. Powell privately called the "you break it, you own it" rule of military action, according to a new book.

"You're sure?" Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. "You understand the consequences," he is said to have stated in a half-question. "You know you're going to be owning this place?"

The book, "Plan of Attack," by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, reconstructs that and other private conversations between senior Bush administration officials during the 16-month period of planning and preparation that ended with the attack on Iraq last March.

It has been well known that Mr. Powell was the most skeptical among Mr. Bush's senior advisers about the wisdom of invading Iraq. But the new details described in the book, at a time when the American occupation has met with new perils, add considerably to a portrait of a secretary of state who expressed private reservations about the administration's policy but never issued a public protest about the administration's course.

"Force should always be a last resort; I have preached this for most of my professional life as a soldier and as a diplomat; but it must be a resort," Mr. Powell told the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 14, 2003. "We cannot allow this process to be endlessly strung out, as Iraq is trying to do now."

Mr. Powell is described as having clashed in particular with Vice President Dick Cheney, whom Mr. Woodward describes as a "powerful, steamrolling force" advocating the war who was preoccupied with reports of links between Saddam Hussein and the Qaeda terrorist network. Mr. Powell regarded Mr. Cheney's intense focus on Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda as a "fever," the book says, and he believed that the vice president misread and exaggerated intelligence about the Iraq threat and supposed terrorist ties.

Mr. Woodward's account quickly provoked speculation in Washington that Mr. Powell might have cooperated with Mr. Woodward as the book was being prepared in an effort to distance himself from the Iraq war.

A spokesman for Mr. Powell said Friday night that he could not determine whether the secretary had spoken with Mr. Woodward.

Mr. Powell has made no secret in the past that he has helped Mr. Woodward with other books. Only Mr. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are identified by the author as having given on-the-record interviews for the book. But conversations between Mr. Powell and Mr. Bush are quoted verbatim in the book, and in the account of the January 2003 conversation, Mr. Bush is identified only as a corroborating source.

Richard A. Boucher, Mr. Powell's spokesman, declined to comment on the book, saying he had not read it and adding: `We won't do book reviews. I promise." Asked if it were true that Mr. Powell and Mr. Cheney were barely on speaking terms, Mr. Boucher said, "I think that's not true."

An official in Mr. Cheney's office said Friday that the vice president and his spokesman were flying back to the United States from a weeklong trip to Asia and would not be available for comment on Friday evening.

The 443-page book, published by Simon & Schuster and to be available in bookstores next week, provides the most detailed account to date of debate and tension within the administration before the war, but it does not add any broad new story lines. The Associated Press published an account of the book's contents on Friday morning; The New York Times also obtained a copy.

In a note to readers, Mr. Woodward writes that he based the book on information "from more than 75 key people directly involved in the events," a model he has used in other books. Following that model, the book does not include footnotes or otherwise identify the source of specific information. When he attributed thoughts, judgments or feelings to participants, Mr. Woodward writes, he obtained them from the person, a colleague with firsthand knowledge, or the written record.
In Mr. Woodward's account of the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Powell in January 2003, the president is described as having simply informed the secretary of state of his decision to go to war in Iraq, as part of a 12-minute meeting in which Mr. Bush made a conscious decision not to ask Mr. Powell for advice.

But, according to the book, Mr. Bush did ask Mr. Powell "Are you with me on this?" and told him, "I want you with me." Mr. Powell is quoted as having replied: "I'll do the best I can. Yes sir, I will support you. I'm with you, Mr. President." (sender's comment: Without regard for the lives of OUR children? That's NOT "integrity," Mr. Powell!)

The book discloses that Mr. Bush privately asked Mr. Rumsfeld in November 2001, just 72 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, to direct his commanders to begin planning for a possible war against Iraq. But it says that Mr. Bush did not make his final decision to start the war until January 2003. (In a televised news conference on March 6, Mr. Bush said, "I've not made up our mind about military action.")

Asked about the account on Friday at a joint appearance with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Mr. Bush said it was difficult for him to recall specific dates that far back. But he called attention to a meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, on Sept. 15, 2001, the Saturday after the attacks.

"I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response, and the subject of Iraq came up," Mr. Bush told reporters. "And I said as plainly as I possibly could: `We'll focus on Afghanistan. That's where we'll focus."'

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, confirmed on Friday that Mr. Bush had raised the issue of Iraq with Mr. Rumsfeld in November 2001, at a time when American forces were still heavily engaged in the war in Afghanistan. But Mr. McClellan sought to minimize the significance of those discussions, saying that "there is a difference between planning and making a decision."

The exact timing of Mr. Bush's request to Mr. Rumsfeld to begin war planning had not been publicly known, and it had not been known that, as the book reports, Mr. Bush kept that request secret from other top advisers, including Mr. Powell, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

But the general time line for war planning that is presented in the book is broadly consistent with other recent accounts, including public statements by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the retired commander of the Iraq war. It generally upholds the insistence by Mr. Bush and his top advisers that they did not begin their war planning for Iraq until well after the Sept. 11 attacks, even if their attention was fixed on Iraq from early in the administration, as former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has written in a recent book.

In an interview with Mr. Woodward in December 2003, Mr. Bush said he had kept the early war-planning directive secret because if news of it had leaked out, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation," the book says.

The book also provides new details about the hurriedly arranged airstrike on March 19, 2003, in which the White House jump-started the war with a bomb and missile strike on the Dora Farms compound near Baghdad in a failed attempt to kill Mr. Hussein.

The air raid, advocated by Mr. Tenet, had initially been opposed by General Franks, the book says, but was approved by President Bush and Vice President Cheney after they asked other advisers to leave the Oval Office.

The strike was launched, the book says, on the basis of first-hand reports from Iraqi sources at Dora Farms enlisted by a network of 87 Iraqi spies, designated with the code name DB/ROCKSTARS, who had been recruited by a C.I.A. team that had infiltrated northern Iraq in the months before the war.

In calls by satellite phone to the C.I.A. team, the Iraqi sources reported that Mr. Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were at the compound, and that Mr. Hussein himself would return there. After the strike, the book says, one Iraqi source reported Mr. Hussein's body had been removed from the wreckage, prompting Mr. Tenet to celebrate what he thought had been a success.

Even now, it is still not clear whether Mr. Hussein was at the site at all, though a C.I.A. official said on Friday that the agency maintained that Mr. Hussein was "probably" there and survived the American raid. Mr. Woodward's book reports that the Iraqi security guard who was the main source of the intelligence was killed in the American attack, but a C.I.A. official said that the Iraqi agents recruited by the agency had proved "extraordinarily productive."

Over a period that began in early 2002, Mr. Powell is depicted as having cautioned Mr. Bush and other advisers repeatedly about the potential drawbacks of military action in Iraq. The "you break it, you own it" principle he cited in delivering those warnings was privately known to Mr. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, as "the Pottery Barn rule," the book says.

"You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people," Mr. Powell is said to have told Mr. Bush in the summer of 2002. "You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. You'll own it all."

Conservatives have long accused Mr. Powell of pursuing his own agenda, and of being more interested in depicting himself as right on the issues than as loyal to his president.

Among the previously unknown episodes presented in the book was a White House meeting in December 2002 in which Mr. Tenet and his deputy, John McLaughlin, met with Mr. Bush and his top advisers for what was intended as a dress rehearsal for a public presentation of the administration's claim that Iraq possessed illicit weapons.

Mr. Bush was not impressed by the presentation, the book reports, and urged that it be refined to make a stronger case to "Joe Public." He is said to have turned to Mr. Tenet and said, "I've been told all this intelligence about having W.M.D. and this is the best we've got?"(sender's comment: Even Bush was skeptical!)

In response, Mr. Tenet is described in the book as having twice assured Mr. Bush that the intelligence information supporting the American claims meant that the case was a "slam dunk." A C.I.A. official said that Mr. Tenet was reflecting an assessment spelled out in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that declared unambiguously that Iraq possessed both chemical and biological weapons.

Alpha

Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php

Alpha · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 11:04 pm Post subject: Bush: Ayatollah or Useful Idiot?

Subj: Bush: Ayatollah or Useful Idiot?
Date: 4/17/04 3:45:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Friends,

Bush: Ayatollah or Useful Idiot?

I have included two contrasting articles on Bush’s motives and role by war liberal Richard Cohen. The first deals with Bush’s recent press conference, in which Cohen perceives Bush as a fanatical believer in "changing the world." The second article comes from last July, in which Cohen describes Bush as a "useful idiot." Guess, which belief I tend to hold. I will begin by focusing on Cohen’s most recent piece.

Remember that Richard Cohen is a war liberal; he supported the Iraq war with a little wringing of the hands. Cohen, now in his hand-wringing stage, manages to isolate the central idiocies of Bush’s press conference but then completely neglects to explain the background of that thinking—or whatever passes for thinking for Dubya.

"What matters more is the phrase Bush used five times in one way or another: ‘We're changing the world.’ He used it always in reference to the war in Iraq and he used it in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson, that presidential personification of naive morality, shake his head in bemusement. In Bush's rhetoric, a war to rid Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, a war to ensure that Condoleezza Rice's ‘mushroom cloud’ did not appear over an American city, has mutated into an effort to reorder the world."

Cohen continues. "Some people might consider this religious drivel and others might find it stirring, but whatever it is, it cannot be the basis for foreign policy, not to mention a war. Yet it explains, as nothing else can, just why Bush is so adamantly steadfast about Iraq and why he simply asserts what is not proved or just plain untrue -- the purported connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, for instance, or why Hussein was such a threat, when we have it on the word of David Kay and countless weapons inspectors that he manifestly was not. Bush talks as if only an atheist would demand proof when faith alone more than suffices. He is America's own ayatollah."

"Ayatollah!" Ayatollahs are Muslim leaders with strongly-held views who lead others by virtue of their sincerity. But is there any evidence that "changing the world" has been a long-held Bush view? During the 2000 campaign Bush took just the opposite view, expressing strong opposition to "nation-building." "Changing the world" was, of course, not the reason the US went to war against Iraq. The US went to war because Iraq supposedly was a grave threat the to US—it was preemptive war. It would appear that as other war explanations have proven untrue—threatening WMD, Saddam’s terrorist ties to Osama—the "democratic change" explanation has moved to the front and center by a process of elimination and substitution.

Cohen continues:

"But what really has to be examined is how a single man, the president, took the nation and part of the world to war because, as he essentially put it Tuesday night, he was ‘called’ to do it." Can Cohen really believe this—that it was Bush, the great leader, who single-handedly took the country to war? Can one be both extremely ignorant and unintelligent and successfully impose one’s vision on others a la Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Lenin? Though these evil men sanctioned mass murder, they were obviously intelligent and focused on ideas--and single-mindedly sought to shape society according to their own views. Clearly Bush was not the major figure in preparing the US for war. Obviously, Cheney and the numerous neocons inside and outside the Administration played the major role in pushing the US to war.

But what about Dubya and ideas? He doesn’t read. He relies on his advisors for information. So guess where he got the view about democratic transformation? He got it from the same source where he got the ideas about threatening WMD and Saddam's close ties to Al Qaida. And I think you know what that source is—the NEOCONS. Yes, those ideas have loomed large among the neocons for years. Neocons and their close associate Dick Cheney served as Bush’s advisors. They pushed much of the WMD war propaganda—think of the Office of Special Plans. They were the major force were pushing for war. And they have now persuaded Bush that it was a war for freedom. And Bush just repeats the neocon mantras without thinking about them—a la Orwellian duckspeak, which means to repeat slogans without any thinking, just like the quacking of ducks. Duckspeak had not yet been achieved in the "1984" dystopia but now we are in 2004 and Dubya is a very advanced non-thinker.

If it were OK to attack non-free countries then few nations would be safe from attack. The US deals with non-free nations all the time—and it is finding new tyrannies to support in central Asia. And, of course, a military occupation—which involves martial law and censorship—is hard to square with freedom and democracy. And certainly Dubya lacks the intellectual irony to speak the words of Dostoyevsky’s revolutionary character Shigalov in "The Possessed": "I have started out with the idea of unrestricted freedom and I have arrived at unrestricted despotism."

In Dubya’s repetition of America’s war for freedom mantra, he never conceives the need to account for the innumerable violations of this alleged freedom approach in American foreign policy. But then he obviously can’t see them; he is simply engaging in duckspeak.

It was not single man who took the country to war. Rather, Bush was simply a neocon tool, repeating the views that they had placed into his empty head. Interesting enough, Cohen said something very much like this in a July 2003 article, where he wrote:

"Is George Bush the Iraq war's ‘useful idiot’?

The phrase was coined by Vladimir Lenin to refer to gullible communist sympathizers who swallowed whole the party line. They believed what they were told, and what they were told was mostly lies."

Cohen concluded in this piece: "More likely, he [Bush] is merely an uncritical man who believed what he was told. Lenin knew the type." One caveat: Lenin probably did not conceive of someone as mentally challenged as Bush.

Stylistically, it would have been nice to end with the previous paragraph, but I know there are unbelievers in Bush’s stupidity out there. So let me add this quasi-caveat. Bush knows nothing about intellectual subject matter dealing with foreign relations and other broader ideas. He can’t seem to conceptualize. He can’t speak English. He seems totally incurious about what is going on. However, Dubya likes to have popular praise and support. He likes to win election victories. He likes to hold himself in high esteem. I think that even if he loses the upcoming election, he can be made to feel good as a martyr for the cause of righteousness by his many supporters in the war party. In contrast, Lenin’s "useful idiots" would ultimately be morally and physically destroyed by the triumph of Communism.

And while Cohen in 2002 noted that the neocons were behind the war on Iraq, dubbing it "Kristol’s War," for arch-neocon publicist Bill Kristol, he supported it nonetheless. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A28737-2002Jun10&notFound=true

___________________________________________________________

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13298-2004Apr14?language=printer

washingtonpost.com

America's Ayatollah

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, April 15, 2004; Page A25

The term of the moment in Washington is "the wall." This is the legal barrier that once separated the CIA and its investigators from the FBI and its investigators, and which may have contributed to the confusion that enabled the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A more interesting wall, however, was on view Tuesday evening in President Bush's prime-time news conference. It's the one between him and reality.

Never mind that even for Bush, this was a poor performance -- answers that resembled a frantic scavenger hunt for the right (or any) word or, too often, a thought. Never mind that he really had very little to say -- no exit plan for Iraq, no second thoughts about Sept. 11, no wonderment, even, at the apparent disappearance of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and how that might have happened. Like a kid who has been told otherwise, Bush persists in believing in his own version of Santa Claus. The weapons are there, somewhere -- in a North Pole of his mind.

What matters more is the phrase Bush used five times in one way or another: "We're changing the world." He used it always in reference to the war in Iraq and he used it in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson, that presidential personification of naive morality, shake his head in bemusement. In Bush's rhetoric, a war to rid Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, a war to ensure that Condoleezza Rice's "mushroom cloud" did not appear over an American city, has mutated into an effort to reorder the world.

"I also know that there's an historic opportunity here to change the world," Bush said of the effort in Iraq. But the next sentence was even more disquieting. "And it's very important for the loved ones of our troops to understand that the mission is an important, vital mission for the security of America and for the ability to change the world for the better." It is one thing to die to defend your country. It is quite another to do that for a single man's impossible dream. What Bush wants is admirable. It is not, however, attainable.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Bush used the word "crusade" to characterize his response to the attacks. The Islamic world, remembering countless crusades on behalf of Christianity, protested, and Bush quickly interred the word in the National Archives or someplace. Nonetheless, that is pretty much what Bush described in his news conference -- not a crusade for Christ and not one to oust the Muslims from Jerusalem but an American one that would eradicate terrorism and, in short, "change the world." The United States, the president said, had been "called" for that task.

Some people might consider this religious drivel and others might find it stirring, but whatever it is, it cannot be the basis for foreign policy, not to mention a war. Yet it explains, as nothing else can, just why Bush is so adamantly steadfast about Iraq and why he simply asserts what is not proved or just plain untrue -- the purported connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, for instance, or why Hussein was such a threat, when we have it on the word of David Kay and countless weapons inspectors that he manifestly was not. Bush talks as if only an atheist would demand proof when faith alone more than suffices. He is America's own ayatollah.

Several investigative commissions are now meeting in Washington, looking into intelligence failures -- everything from the failure to detect and intercept the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to the assertion that Iraq was armed to the teeth with all sorts of awful stuff. But what really has to be examined is how a single man, the president, took the nation and part of the world to war because, as he essentially put it Tuesday night, he was "called" to do it.

If that is the case, and it sure seems so at the moment, then this commission has to ask us all -- and I don't exclude myself -- how much of Congress and the press went to war with an air of juvenile glee. The Commission on Credulous Stupidity may call me as its first witness, but after that it has to examine how, despite our vaunted separation of powers, a barely elected president opted for a war that need not have been fought. This is Bush's cause, a noble but irrational effort much like the one that set off for Jerusalem in the year 1212. It was known as the Children's Crusade.

____________________________________________

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26010-2003Jul21?language=printer

Bush the Believer

By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, July 22, 2003; Page A17

Is George Bush the Iraq war's "useful idiot"?

The phrase was coined by Vladimir Lenin to refer to gullible communist sympathizers who swallowed whole the party line. They believed what they were told, and what they were told was mostly lies.

It could be somewhat the same with Bush. He may well be the last person to believe that the Iraq war was waged virtually in self-defense. He believes that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons. He believes Hussein had other weapons of mass destruction and that he was linked somehow -- don't ask how -- to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the events of Sept. 11.

The evidence is nowhere to be found. No weapons of mass destruction have turned up. An advanced Iraqi nuclear program seems to be, well, not so advanced. The evidence for it is either bogus or so tenuous as to be far from convincing. Ties to al Qaeda -- "bulletproof evidence," in the words of Don Rumsfeld -- have not been proved and never made much sense anyway. Al Qaeda is not well disposed toward secular leaders.

What evidence exists suggests, in fact, that the United States was hankering for a war no matter what. Intelligence -- no matter how fragmentary or inconclusive -- was shaped, molded and goosed until it could be used to prove that Hussein had to be taken out swiftly. The bogus uranium from Niger is a mere detail in this regard -- a smoking gun, yes, but one in the hands of White House aides for whom truth meant less than impact.

The real mystery is whether Bush himself realized how weak the evidence for a preemptive war was or was being manipulated by a cadre of disciplined administration aides who long had sought a war with Iraq. These are some of the very same people who in 1998 wrote a letter to President Clinton arguing that America should abandon containment, "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." Ten of the 18 signatories -- including Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz -- are now in the Bush administration and were among the most vigorous proponents of war. Rumsfeld, Bob Woodward tells us, argued at the first Cabinet meeting after the Sept. 11 attacks for war on Iraq.

They may have been right then and they may be right now -- and in my view, a pretty good case can still be made for the war. But that's not really the case Bush made. Instead of arguing that down the road Iraq might have a nuclear weapons program or that eventually the United Nations would lose interest in maintaining sanctions, he raised the rhetorical danger to one of virtual imminence: Hit Iraq quick -- before Hussein could hit us.

That was a bogus argument. The war could have waited. But Bush could not. My guess is that his tendency to see things in black and white and an un-Clintonian determination to eschew micromanaging led him astray. The president "is not a fact-checker," an administration aide told the media last week in explaining why Bush used weak evidence in his State of the Union message.

But neither is Colin Powell. Yet he went over the evidence carefully, discarding some of it before he made his own presentation to the United Nations. Powell might have suspected what Bush apparently did not -- that some administration officials were so intent on war they were cooking the books.

The proposals contained in the 1998 letter to Clinton were either bold or reckless, depending on your point of view. Whatever the case, Bush essentially adopted them. But in choosing an unconventional course, he persisted in using the conventional language of self-defense. In fact, he opted for a discretionary war, one waged not so much to preempt terrorism -- although that was part of the mix -- as to reorder the Middle East.

Had Bush made the same case for war that his aides did in 1998, that could have been debated. But it was a hard case to make, because Hussein really and truly did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. He posed a distant or theoretical threat -- and not really to America but to our interests and allies.

Now Bush stands abandoned by events. No weapons of mass destruction. No nuclear program. No links to al Qaeda. His judgment and his competence are being questioned -- his honesty as well. But the president is no liar. More likely, he is merely an uncritical man who believed what he was told. Lenin knew the type.

Alpha · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject: Fear and Learning in America

This is another excellent article by Fisk (no wonder the Arab/Muslim world wants to attack as those Israeli 'homicide helicopter' pilots are trained in Iowa (as Fisk mentions here):

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk0416.html

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

Here is Bin Laden's warning against our support of Israel:

http://www.investigate911.com/binladensez.htm

Alpha · Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 12:57 am Post subject: Jewish Terrorism in Palestine

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p-88_Clarke.html

http://www.deiryassin.org/

Alpha

Alpha · Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 2:01 am Post subject: Report Back from Syria

Report Back from Syria (and FYI, the Zionists Are Already Re-Building the Third Temple Offsite and Plan to Destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque)

By Wendy Campbell

I just got back from a fabulous trip to Syria, truly a hidden treasure full of fantastic historical sites going back thousands of years and a delightful place with incredibly friendly and hospitable people, even after finding out that I am an American.

You might be surprised to hear that Syria is a fantastic destination, even for Americans. But think about it. Who has been telling you that Syria is full of terrorists? Of course, it's the Zionist-dominated American media. The very same media that has been embedded as part of our Zionist-dominated war-mongoring government. The very same media that has been beating the drums for war against all the countries that Zionists would like to see the US invade and "democratize". The very same media that when being "risque" may even try to blame the war on "oil". The very same media that goes out of its way to avoid the word "Zionism" or explaining Israel's apartheid regime, or Israel's on-going history of ethnic-cleansing against non-Jewish indigenous Palestinians in Palestine-Israel. The very same media that tries to deny that the war on Iraq has been a war fought on only Israel's behalf.

Yes, THAT U.S. media. That Department of Misinformation.

So, no wonder that I, for one, was not surprised to find out that Syria is actually a friendly, beautiful and fascinating place to visit.

However, I must say, that I was surprised at how incredibly friendly the Syrian people were. We went in with a small group tour, all Christians (mostly Christian Scientists, and a couple Roman Catholics), and one agnostic.

Everywhere we went, even just walking down the street, many of the Syrian people called out "Hello" and "Welcome!" to us, even after they found out we were American, which we were more than a little ashamed to admit since we are all anti-war and detest Bush's policies. We were welcomed into many Syrians' homes for "flower tea" or Syrian or Turkish coffee, into upscale homes, modest city apartments and Bedouin beehive-shaped adobe mud homes sitting on carpets way out in the countryside.

By the way, our tour guide, a Greek Orthodox Christian, said on several occasions to our group that Syrians are not against Jews and Judaism but they are against Zionism. Syrians all know what Zionism is, but Zionist Jews in this country have not gone out of their way to explain to non-Jewish Americans exactly what Zionism is. The typical explanation a Zionist Jew will give to explain to a non-Jew when asked about Zionism is to claim that Zionism is the belief that Jews must have a homeland in Israel, formerly known as Palestine, and that Jews must have self-sovereignty in a Jewish state. They never include the fact that in order for Jews to have a Jewish state, it has always been and continues to be at the expense of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people. Zionists typically put a veil on the ugly way in which Israel was created and Israel’s on-going ethnic cleansing campaign against the indigenous, non-Jewish Palestinian people who are being persecuted and denied equal rights in their own ancestral homeland.

The ethnocentric Jewish state of Israel is also maintained at the expense of the American people with the billions of our tax dollars which our government funnels to Israel every year unconditionally and virtually on demand. On top of that, our government’s political and economic support of the apartheid state of Israel has created anti-American sentiment worldwide and sacrifices our credibility. Palestinians continue to pay the ultimate price for racist Israel with their lives and property, but now Americans are paying not only with their tax dollars and our country’s reputation, but also with American blood in fighting wars for Israel, such as the war on Iraq.

Fortunately not all Jews are Zionists and not all Jews try to hide the truth about Zionism and Zionist Israel. An excellent primer entitled “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict” written by Jews For Justice in the Middle East can be found at the website www.cactus48.com <http://www.cactus48.com/> . For information about how some Jews believe Zionism to be the exact opposite of Judaism, read about the Neturei Karta, a worldwide organization of Ultra Orthodox Jews, at www.nkusa.org <http://www.nkusa.org/> or order my documentary entitled “Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism” via my website at www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com <http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com/> .

Contrary to what Zionists' would have Americans believe, Syrian women are free to wear whatever they want. In any given street scene or restaurant, the spectrum of clothing that women in Syria wear ranges from Brittany Spears' style skin-tight jeans and teeshirts (but no belly showing) to professional Western-style suits, to wearing a hejab and sometimes a traditional robe to being entirely covered in flowing black, face included (mostly from Iran, I was told). There were no Afghan-style burqas to be found, even in a store, which we had wanted to bring back for a Halloween outfit.

Contrary to what Zionists would have you believe about the Muslim men oppressing their women, we found Muslim men to be very charming, natural and relaxed and even deferential to women. As a woman I felt completely comfortable in communicating with the Syrian men I met. In fact, at one point, my fiance decided to stay with the tour in the museum, and I decided to split to explore the nearby shops on my own. We were in Aleppo, the oldest continuously inhabited by humans city in the entire world. I went into a shop that sold some hookah pipes to photograph them, and a small gathering of men inside the shop kindly invited me to join them in smoking the "hubbly-bubbly" as it is called. I was sincere when I said I would like to but didn't have time. They were most gracious.

By the way, the "hubbly-bubbly" is a recent popular craze at all the Syrian restaurants and cafes. It is just flavored tobacco with apple being the current Syrian favorite, but it is available in other flavors such as mint, cappuccino and more. I tried it twice later, and can attest to the fact that it is very mild tobacco. I did not even get a nicotine buzz! It's just a fun thing to do. It made me think of the hookah-smoking caterpillar in “Alice in Wonderland”. Both men and women smoke it with languid relish. It certainly adds to the exotic mystique of Syrian ambiance.

Another common myth that the Zionist-dominated media puts forth is that the Syrian President Assad is some kind of malevolent dictator. We found that both Assad Jr, and his father are very popular with most Syrians. Many of the homes we visited, including a Kurdish Bedouin adobe beehive-shaped home, had a poster of him prominently displayed on their living room wall. I asked our guide if this was mandatory in Syria, and he replied that it was not and pointed out how he hadn’t put up a poster of Assad in his living room where we had all enjoyed some flower tea and Turkish coffee early in the trip. Not only were the posters of Assad in most public buildings, and a private Christian school, and restaurants, many Syrians had a decal of him on their cars! A Syrian businesswoman who joined us for dinner in Damascus one night spoke very warmly and approvingly of Assad, and she seemed quite sincere. Syrians think their president is doing a great job. This is certainly something Bush cannot boast of! I don’t know anyone who has a poster of him anywhere in the USA unless it’s making fun of him!

Yet another common myth is that Jews were chased out of Syria, and that any Jews who remain in Syria are discriminated against. It should come as no real surprise in this age of Orwellian “news” that quite the opposite is true. First of all, many Jews left Syria voluntarily to be in Israel, which as you know gives favored status to Jews. The Jews who have chosen to stay in Syria are among the wealthiest of Syrian society. On top of that, the Syrian government goes out of its way to make sure that Jews are not discriminated against there, and in fact, apparently Jews get preferential treatment in many cases. Just for an example, Jews may get governmental documents speedier than non-Jews in Syria precisely to avoid any charges of discrimination, we were told. We personally met a Jewish man who was managing his antiques shop in Damascus, where he had non-Jewish shop-owners as neighbors. They all seemed to get along together quite well. Once again, another Zionist myth shattered.

One interesting fact about Syria is that cars are prohibitively expensive there, with huge taxes being imposed on them, sometimes three times as much as the original price of the car! Therefore, Syria is simply awash in taxi-cabs! It’s very cheap to take taxis in Syria, fortunately, and they also have community taxis for those on a very tight budget.

It may not come as a big surprise that the Syrian newspapers have many stories about the evils of Zionism, the neoconservatives, apartheid Israel, Israel's Apartheid Wall, the war crimes of Ariel Sharon, and general wrath about Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people. These kinds of candid stories are not what one typically finds in the US media. By the way, there were no Syrian stories dwelling on that red herring of "oil" as the reason for the US-led war on Iraq. Because the Syrians know, along with the rest of the world, that the war on Iraq was the brainchild of Israel and the Zionists, both Israeli and American.

The following revelation most likely will come as a surprise to you, dear readers, as it was even a surprise to me, an expert on Zionism and Palestine-Israel.

As a matter of fact, it is a fact that is not known by many outside of Israel or the Middle East:

The Zionist Jews are already re-building the Third Temple offsite somewhere in the Jewish state of Israel, which they plan to re-locate to the original site of the first two temples in Jerusalem--- on top of the Temple Mount where the Al Aqsa Mosque currently sits. The Zionists are waiting for the right moment to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, which is the third most holy site of the Muslim world, and then re-locate the temple they are currently building off-site. We were informed about this endeavor by a top-level Syrian businessman during our trip over dinner.

According to him there are many Zionist organizations whose sole purpose is to realize this event. Apparently this is common knowledge in the Middle East, yet Americans are certainly not aware of this. This makes it even clearer why Sharon’s visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque in September 2000 with 1000 troops sparked off the Second Intifada by the Palestinians. Of course, the Palestinians were already pushed to the boiling point by many factors at that point.

However the military visit to Al Aqsa Mosque was a deliberately provocative act by Sharon to show that he was stepping up the timetable to realize the Zionist dream of rebuilding the Temple on the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, heralding a NEW WORLD ORDER with Jerusalem as the capital of the world. The Zionists have already been digging tunnels underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque. For more information about this, please check out http://www.hoffman-info.com/warren.html and also http://www.templemount.org/tempprep.html.

Of course, the Palestinians reacted predictably violently as Sharon was hoping, to give him an excuse to “retaliate” with even greater force and more deadly violence, since Israel has the fourth strongest army in the world, and the Palestinians have NONE.

Unfortunately for Sharon, the WILL OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE is stronger than all of his weapons. However, the Palestinian people are being sorely tried. It’s up to the American people who have been enlightened about the evil of Zionism to spread the word of this new Nazism, this neo-Nazism, and to stop it by pressuring our government to end its unconditional support of racist apartheid Israel and becoming the media ourselves. We must spread the word NOW. There is still time for JUSTICE to triumph over evil.

As a lone sign at the recent anti-war rally in NYC on March 20th stated: "Second Most Important World Super-Power: American Public Opinion."

If you believe in justice for all regardless of religion, ethnicity or sex, you and me, we've got our work cut out for us.

At any rate, if you are looking for a fantastic, eye-opening adventure with good value for your money, I highly recommend that you consider taking a trip to Syria. I have been to many places around the world, and my trip to Syria ranks somewhere at the very top.

For more information on travel to Syria, contact author Scott Davis about his upcoming tours to Syria and his book “Road From Damascus” via his website www.cunepress.net <http://www.cunepress.net/> and www.dialoguesyria.org <http://www.dialoguesyria.org/> . If you want to go to Syria on your own, please contact Caravan-Serai. Based in Seattle, they specialize in arranging travel to Middle Eastern countries. Their website is www.caravan-serai.com <http://www.caravan-serai.com/> .

For information on how to get a VHS tape of a travelogue-documentary I am making about my trip to Syria, please contact me via my website at www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com.

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