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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
< http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1316866&l=14452 >
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OFFICIAL CONFIRMS BUSH PLOTTING IRAQ INVASION PRE-9/11, DESPITE PRESIDENT'S
DENIAL
One day after President Bush rejected former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's
charge that he was plotting an Iraq invasion before 9/11, a new report
proved his denial was dishonest.
On Monday, when Bush was asked whether the charges were true, he said, "No,
the stated policy of my administration towards Saddam Hussein was very
clear. Like the previous administration, we were for regime change." One
White House official added, "It's laughable to suggest that the
administration was planning an invasion of Iraq that shortly after coming to
office."
But according to a new ABC News report, "President Bush ordered the Pentagon
to explore the possibility of a ground invasion of Iraq well before the
United States was attacked on September 11th." The story quoted a White
House official who attended the same National Security Council meetings as
O'Neill. That official said the president's order "went beyond the Clinton
administration's halfhearted attempts to overthrow Hussein without force."
This report - and O'Neill's charge - are consistent with earlier reporting
noting that "invading Iraq was not a new idea for the Bush team" after
September 11th. While Bush regularly invoked the terrorist attacks as the
reason for war in Iraq, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that "in
reality, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney,
and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had begun making the case for
an American invasion of Iraq as early as 1997 - nearly four years before the
September 11th attacks and three years before President Bush took office."
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