O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

[Malachi151]

www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/index.html

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told CBS, according to excerpts released Saturday by the network. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

O'Neill, who served nearly two years in Bush's Cabinet, was asked to resign by the White House in December 2002 over differences he had with the president's tax cuts. O'Neill was the main source for "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill," by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

The CBS report is scheduled to be broadcast Sunday night; the book is to be released Tuesday by publisher Simon & Schuster.

Suskind said O'Neill and other White House insiders gave him documents showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.

"There are memos," Suskind told the network. "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'"

Suskind cited a Pentagon document titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," which, he said, outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from ... 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."

In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting asked why Iraq should be invaded.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" O'Neill said.

Yes, you can all be happy to knwo that I was keeping you informed in those dark days of media lies. You can tell everyoen you saw it here first:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/lies.htm

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/putting_it_all_together.htm


http://www.rationalrevolution.net/what_is_this_war_really_all_abou.htm

[subgenius]

Just a raving disgruntled ex-employee who wants to make money from a book.;)
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33621

[epepke]

Originally posted by Malachi151
Yes, you can all be happy to knwo that I was keeping you informed in those dark days of media lies. You can tell everyoen you saw it here first:

Except, perhaps, for this thread: http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33677

Which, BTW, is still on the first page as I write this.

[TillEulenspiegel]

So many people have been saying this for 2 years with direct evidence..should we be suprized?
As I'm typing I'm watching the 60 minutes interview w/ Paul O'Neill, anyone who has an opinion of Bush as somthing other than an idiot should see it.

[Drooper]

I read this report too, but I am still puzzled by it.

Why is this news at all? Who has ever claimed that 911 was the supposed to be the reason for the invasion?

Not the US or UK. According to them it was due to the (12 year) failure to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on the provision fo evidence of WMDs and their destruction.

This is a really really big non-issue.

[NullPointerException]

Clinton was also planning to invade Iraq. Now I hate Bush irrationally too but at least I know why I hate him.

[LTC8K6]

I am sure an Iraq invasion has been planned in the US for a very long time.

[Aoidoi]

Originally posted by LTC8K6
I am sure an Iraq invasion has been planned in the US for a very long time. If you poke around a bit I think you can still find US plans for invading Canada. :D

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Aoidoi
If you poke around a bit I think you can still find US plans for invading Canada. :D


Planning costs little, and the benefits of planning are obvious. Planning helps us make intelligent procurement decisions, it helps us tell our allies what parts of their forces best complement our own shortcomings. It helps us point out flaws in our allies forces and defensive deployments. (Can Panama hold the canal against a Colombian invasion? What does the US have to do to make sure it can sieze the canal if it needs to?)

We should have a plan to invade every country on the planet. We should have a plan to blockade every country on the planet. We should have a plan to suppress a civil war. We should have a plan to suppress a Mexican civil war.

Planning costs little. Facing an unforseen crisis without a plan for that crisis can cost much. Even writing up a plan for invading a firm ally such as Australia can tell us a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of our forces in that region of the world. Where's the harm? That we might offend Australians if they find out about it?

That said, having a plan doesn't demonstrate intent. O'neill is trying to demonstrate intent to execute a plan. Many people see intent to remove Saddam as nefarious. In my view, in light of the Iraq Liberation Act passed in Congress in 1998, any administration should have had intent to remove Saddam Hussein, in compliance with the Legislature's wishes.

old thread on this (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=368368&highlight=intent#post368368)

[Crossbow]

It has been public knowledge that (for at least the last several months) that there were quite a few within the Bush Administration that wanted to make war with Iraq in order to finish up the mess that has been brewing since 1991. However, they were lacking a good pre-text and then along came the 9/1 attacks and that provided the pre-text.

They could claim that Saddam helped the terrorists, or that he was about to help them, or that he would help future terrorists, and so on.

And that is just what the Bush Administration did. Make all sorts of claims about what Saddam did in the past, what he was doing now, and what he would do in the future, therefore we must make war with him now!

[Richard G]

Waiting for a time of crisis is not the time to plan for war. If you could peruse the halls of the Pentagon, and the National Security Council, you would find top secret war-plans on the shelf for every major country on earth, even our allies. And the plans are constantly being revised.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Richard G
Waiting for a time of crisis is not the time to plan for war. If you could peruse the halls of the Pentagon, and the National Security Council, you would find top secret war-plans on the shelf for every major country on earth, even our allies. And the plans are constantly being revised.

The evidence of intent to execute the plan might be shown in the priority given to an Iraq plan in the administration.

For instance, I would imagine the plans for a UK invasion doesn't get mentioned often in the NSC meetings.

This, of course, is my speculation. I'm sure if someone asked this question, we'd be enlightened on that. Not that anyone is going to ask him that. For the press, plan==intent.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Originally posted by Richard G
Waiting for a time of crisis is not the time to plan for war. If you could peruse the halls of the Pentagon, and the National Security Council, you would find top secret war-plans on the shelf for every major country on earth, even our allies. And the plans are constantly being revised.

What You say is true no doubt, it is the job of the armed forces to come up with viable plans for war , rescue ect. operations with various scenarios. The fact that this one particular study disserved so much time and attention by Bush and his cabinet belies that this was a casual exploration or fancy.

edit sp

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by specious_reasons


The evidence of intent to execute the plan might be shown in the priority given to an Iraq plan in the administration.

For instance, I would imagine the plans for a UK invasion doesn't get mentioned often in the NSC meetings.

This, of course, is my speculation. I'm sure if someone asked this question, we'd be enlightened on that. Not that anyone is going to ask him that. For the press, plan==intent.

Well to be fair we did not fight UK which then surrendered on our terms and then violated no fly zones every other month -- which includes shooting at our forces -- and broke many other terms. I am sure Clinton staff brought it up on few occasions, heck he bombed Iraq. If this is intended to prove a conspiracy, it fails miserably.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Grammatron

Well to be fair we did not fight UK which then surrendered on our terms and then violated no fly zones every other month -- which includes shooting at our forces -- and broke many other terms. I am sure Clinton staff brought it up on few occasions, heck he bombed Iraq. If this is intended to prove a conspiracy, it fails miserably.

Right, the UK was an extreme example, based on what Richard G wrote, used to poor effect as humor. I do think that intent could be discerned based on the priority of Iraqi war plans in the Bush Admin prior to 9/11. I also think that we don't know what that level was, especially in comparison to other perceived threats at the time.

I also fear we will never find out, because this is not the sort of question most media asks about. They've got the "they had a plan, that means they intended to invade all along" script they're playing by.

[DrChinese]

Originally posted by NullPointerException
Clinton was also planning to invade Iraq.

I have never heard this. Ousting Saddam, yes, but not via an invasion. I do not believe this was actually planned to any greater degree (under Clinton) than as a "war game" scenario.

[Bluegill]

Originally posted by Aoidoi
If you poke around a bit I think you can still find US plans for invading Canada. :D


Straight Dope on the invasion of Canada (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcanadawar.html) ;)

[Evolver]

Originally posted by DrChinese


I have never heard this. Ousting Saddam, yes, but not via an invasion. I do not believe this was actually planned to any greater degree (under Clinton) than as a "war game" scenario.

Don't you know, everything Bush does wrong is Clinton's fault!!!
:hit:

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by epepke


Except, perhaps, for this thread: http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33677

Which, BTW, is still on the first page as I write this.

I meant the fact that I made these facts known back in April 2003.

[Aoidoi]

Originally posted by Bluegill
Straight Dope on the invasion of Canada (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcanadawar.html) ;) I knew I'd read about that somewhere, just couldn't quite recall where. :D

Gotta love the Straight Dope. :)

[CapelDodger]

from specious_reasons:
For instance, I would imagine the plans for a UK invasion doesn't get mentioned often in the NSC meetings.
Unless the Iraq invasion is a diversion intended to get most of the UK forces out of the country prior to the real invasion. I have no problem with that, by the way - I like Americans. A lot. Really.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by aerocontrols

We should have a plan to invade every country on the planet. We should have a plan to blockade every country on the planet. We should have a plan to suppress a civil war. We should have a plan to suppress a Mexican civil war.

A plan to suppress a Mexican civil war? Vaya a casa, buey.

And after Iraq and Syria, what then? Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Laputa (http://wso.williams.edu/~mhacker/Strangelove/kongdrop.jpg)?

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent

A plan to suppress a Mexican civil war? Vaya a casa, buey.

And after Iraq and Syria, what then? Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Laputa (http://wso.williams.edu/~mhacker/Strangelove/kongdrop.jpg)?


Trouble understanding the difference between planning and intent?

[epepke]

Originally posted by aerocontrols
Planning costs little, and the benefits of planning are obvious.

I hear you, and I agree completely.

What gets me and was one of the reasons I did not support the invasion of Iraq, is that apparently the US didn't have a plan, doesn't have a plan, and in fact doesn't seem to have the vaguest shadow of a notion of the barest, most meagre possibility of what a highly charitable person on a good day, full not only of the milk of human kindness but a large amount of brandy and oxycontin might, in a rare moment of extreme generosity refer to as remotely resembling a clue as to what you do after an invasion.

Edited to fix a typo and add, I know that sentence should be taken out and shot, but in this case, I think it's warranted.

Or if there was a plan, it was written by a third grader in crayon on a roll of toilet paper which was then used and flushed into the DC sewers, where it now resides with the tattered remnants of the Bill of Rights.

That said, having a plan doesn't demonstrate intent.

I can only point out that anyone who could not figure out, in 2000, based on what Bush said while campaigning, that he had a fair amount of intent even then was probably delusional.

[Ed]

Originally posted by epepke


I hear you, and I agree completely.

What gets me and was one of the reasons I did not support the invasion of Iraq, is that apparently the US didn't have a plan, doesn't have a plan, and in fact doesn't seem to have the vaguest shadow of a notion of the barest, most meagre possibility of what a highly charitable person on a good day, full not only of the milk of human kindness but a large amount of brandy and oxycontin might, in a rare moment of extreme generosity refer to as remotely resembling a clue as to what you do after an invation.



And how would you recognize a "plan"? And what is it, exactly, that one obviously does after an invasion?

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by epepke


I hear you, and I agree completely.

(more stuff here...)

The objections you follow up with are about things that are not the Pentagon's call. They are military considerations that hinge on policy decisions, and the the policy decisions that are available after the war largely hinge on whether the invasion plan went as written. The Pentagon may make separate plans for the invasion of Iraq based on whether we have Saudi Arabia's help or apathy or opposition, whether we have Turkey's help or apathy or opposition, whether we have France's help or apathy or opposition, etc.

MattJ

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ed


And how would you recognize a "plan"? And what is it, exactly, that one obviously does after an invasion?

Come on, this is not difficult. Even I know that when you launch a full-scale invasion, you install a military occupation. If you don't have the resources or the will or the politics to do that, you don't launch a full-scale invasion in the first place.

You either do the job and pay the costs, or you find another job that you can pay the costs for. What you don't do is try a half-hearted job under the fantasy that it is going to cost half as much, because the reality is that it winds up costing a lot more.

Either a full-scale invasion and military occupation or no invasion at all would have been better than what we're looking forward to.

Specific things you don't do include playing films in your head about how all the people will welcome you will open arms, imagine the civil systems will just magically magnetize themselves back together, assume that military units will be any damned good at civil enforcement, later on find out they aren't and say "gosh, maybe we should have some civil enforcement experts," expect The People™ to come together and immediately be all democratic while they can't even reliably put food on the table, extend tours of duty ad hoc because you couldn't count, decide, "gee, maybe we should have secured the museum?" or any of the other things that have been done.

A full-scale occupation would probably have made France and Germany more pissed off (only until the money started rolling in), but it would have worked and would have been over with fairly quickly. The US occupation of Japan (which was just a teensy bit more difficult than Iraq) lasted seven years, less time than the UN had already spent jerking around with sanctions. It was only two years before the beginning of rearmament. Let's be pessimistic and assume five years of occupation, and after that, one hell of an ally, a stable core in the middle east, and the first opportunity in history to tell the Saudi family to go get stuffed. Would it have been worth it?

Or the US could have done nothing, or continued sanctions, or something else. Not likely to do anything, but not terribly costly, either. More brutality in Iraq. More whining about how sanctions are killing 5000 Iraqi babies a month. But Saddam Hussein would have eventually died.

But instead, the US does something that, I guess, is going to lead to a big, fat, ugly mess lasting decades that will always be remember as the US' fault. I dearly hope I'm wrong, but I don't live in the Happy Meal universe.

It is at this point someone usually tries to instruct me about how the US couldn't do a full military occupation because of the political, moral, monetary, etc. costs to try to justify what the US is doing. I know somebody who is a terrible driver and has ADHD. She does this thing turning left into a parking lot. You know the basic procedure, you wait for a break in the traffic, and you turn, on the grounds that you will have gotten into the parking lot by the time the oncoming traffic hits. The thing is that she does this even if there is a line of cars in the entrance to the parking lot. So, what happens is that she makes a partial turn, a turn that would have been safe if the way had been clear, but she stops behind the car in front of her, leaving the butt end of her car halfway into the oncoming lane. Before I learned that, whenever I went somewhere with her, I'd have to drive, if I didn't watch her like a hawk, this thing would happen. Then I'd say "Get off the road; there's a car coming." She'd say, "I can't, there's a car there!" Then, later, usually after some squealing of tires by the oncoming driver, I'd say, "Don't start a turn unless you can complete it. You saw the car was there; you shouldn't have started the turn." No matter how many times I've said this, she has never gotten the idea. So I'm not going to try to explain it here.

[epepke]

Originally posted by aerocontrols
The objections you follow up with are about things that are not the Pentagon's call. They are military considerations that hinge on policy decisions, and the the policy decisions that are available after the war largely hinge on whether the invasion plan went as written. The Pentagon may make separate plans for the invasion of Iraq based on whether we have Saudi Arabia's help or apathy or opposition, whether we have Turkey's help or apathy or opposition, whether we have France's help or apathy or opposition, etc.

Um, so what? This sounds like bureaucratic CYA stuff to me. The Pentagon and the rest of the bureaucracy aren't small private liberal arts colleges in Massachussets. They exist pursuant to the goal that they result in a grain of sense under a system in which government itself exists by the consent of the government.

The system, in my estimation, has resulted in a situation that couldn't possibly be more of a clusterf*** if it had been devised by a committee of nurses, television executives, and postmodernist philosophers.

If you want to persuade me that I'm wrong about that, go ahead.

If you want to discuss exactly where and how the system is broken, go ahead.

But I've overloaded on bailiwicks and procedures and doublethink and answers that are no answer at all. I overloaded about the time that the FBI was asked why they hadn't, like, told anybody that Mohammed Atta was on a list of suspected terrorists. The answer was something like, "Sometimes we release information, and sometimes we don't. We make the decision based upon weighing appropriate factors." This is MAD Magazine material, folks, not the way the most powerful and free nation on the planet is supposed to work.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by aerocontrols

Trouble understanding the difference between planning and intent?
Is one primary and the other secondary?

While Medieval philosophers might have seen planning (or practice) primarily in terms of establishing and maintaining the conditions for intent (or theory), Enlightenment philosophers would tend to present intent (or theory) as a means of achieving better planning (or practice).

[crackmonkey]

O'Neill clarifies his statements, making a liar of Malachi...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/index.html

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
O'Neill clarifies his statements, making a liar of Malachi...


And not the first time....

I'm sure people will still claim that it's Bush still went into 9/11 for oil and Saddam is not evil enough to bother because he only attacked 4 countries while in power.

[Agammamon]

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if we had a plan to invade Iraq. I would be surprised if we didn't. That's what the military does. We've probably even got a plan to invade Canada around here somewhere. 'Course just because we have a plan doesn't mean we planned to invade.

This is a guy calling Bush incompetent and ineffectual, a guy who was fired for screwing up (something almost unheard of in DC). Because of it the Republicans are calling O'Neil names, the irony of it is it was Bush that put the guy in office in the first place.