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Looks like the "we most certainly did not have Iraq in the back of our minds since the moment we got into office" administration has suffered some new blows."President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy.
Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journal (`entry_id`,`time`,`title`,`body`,`topic`,`description`,`delicious`) ist Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion. |
Mmmmm hmm. Good stuff, no? But it gets better.| "Bush did not address those preparations when asked about them Friday, saying, "I do know that it was Afghanistan that was on my mind and I didn't really start focusing on Iraq 'til later on." |
There is some surprising stuff in there, however. It seems that Bush told Woodward "It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war." That comes as a surprise to myself and many others, since Bush has been looking like he was anxious to go to war since the first moment after 9/11, when he announced that "The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." Not that this wasn't the way he should have felt... but "not anxious for war?" That seems highly doubtful.
More interesting info, via CBS:""President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?' What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret," says Woodward.
"...The end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ...Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this." |
Kos points out that they look to have been stealing from the humanitarian and economic assistance funds for Afghanistan.
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