Bush 'raised Iraq issue (three days) after 9/11'

[sabra]

Source: UKPA

George Bush raised the issue of Iraq with Tony Blair just three days after the 9/11 attacks, Mr Blair's former foreign policy adviser has said.

Sir David Manning told the official inquiry into the war that Mr Bush told Mr Blair that there could be a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida in a telephone conversation on September 14 2001.

He said Mr Blair insisted that the evidence would have to be "very compelling" to justify any action against Iraq.

Sir David said that, throughout the period, Mr Blair argued strongly in favour of trying to resolve the issue of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction through the United Nations.

"The British Government's view throughout this was disarmament. It was not regime change," he said.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hCv5RDoqQrl85J0I8eQGff65GOiw

[KansDem]

1. The decision to invade Iraq was made well before 9/11

PNACers sent a letter to Clintonin 1998 warning him of Iraq:

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC


Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

--more--
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Then the quote, George Bush raised the issue of Iraq with Tony Blair just three days after the 9/11 attacks, Mr Blair's former foreign policy adviser has said, would put Bush back in DC after his three-day flee from Florida. So what the hell was he doing during those three days beside "getting out of harm's way?" Deciding to invade Iraq? And what the hell was he thinking about? Getting the Brits to go in on the invasion?

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Smirk." - xCommander aWol (R)

"Well, you know how we Cons are with our Republicon Family Values, smirk, when it comes to matters of truth and honor. Smirk."

- xCommander aWol (R)

[jaxx]

4. I'm glad you posted this.

It's one of the single most damning pieces of the Iraq invasion. The dye was cast, the movement started and it was a done deal once the 911 attacks happened. And the signatures to the letter spell bushco.

[rocktivity]

7. Why do you think Bush was literally ramrodded into office

via the election results of a state his brother just happened to be governor of? If you think that was a coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you may want to buy!

:eyes:
rocktivity

[LynnTheDem]

3. "sweep it all up". One woulda thought Americans on the whole were too intelligent to fall for that.

And yet, 70% of Americans thought Iraq did 911.

The ONLY nation in the entire world who thought Iraq did 911.


Gee, America, maybe it isn't everyone else that's dumb...

[Botany]

5. Bush is on record in 1998 or 1999 talking about the war on Iraq ...

.... he would have when he was President. (Houston Chronicle ???) and in Dec 1999 bush, Cheney, Rummy, and others
went to the Pentagon war room to have a summit on an attack on Iraq.

[rocktivity]

6. All I know is that not long after 9/11, news stories appeared

about the anthrax from the attacks on Tom Daschel and the media being traced to Baghdad, and about how nameless Bush regime officials wished that torture was legal.

:mad:
rocktivity