Who Needs a Deep Throat When They Say It Themselves?

Wolfie talks too much.

"You were one of those who was most emphatic prior to going into Iraq that Saddam had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

"I don't think so."

"I can quote you."

"Okay."

I read him a line from an op-ed article under his byline in the British newspaper The Independent for January 30, 2003: "There is incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqi regime still possesses such weapons." Wolfowitz had spoken in the same terms on numerous occasions.

"'Incontrovertible evidence' is a pretty strong way of putting it," I said. "How did you feel when you found out they didn't have such weapons?"

"Well, I don't think they don't," he said. "You say it turned out they didn't. By the way, read me the quote again."

I did so. Wolfowitz said he needed to go back and review his prior statements.

"But clearly you believed they had stockpiles of such weapons?"

"You are putting the word 'stockpiles' in," he said.

He was right: "stockpiles" was my word.

[Thanks to Digby for the tip.]


Piles of Smoking Guns

Juan Cole notices there was more than one memo, and more than one paper trail on fixing intelligence leading up to the Iraq war.

The Daily Telegraph for 18 September 2004 first quoted from a leaked memo by Christopher Meyer, UK ambassador in Washington, describing his meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in March, 2002.

The British memo is only the most decisive in a long list of documents that make it inescapably clear that Bush had decided to go to war long before. Indeed, Bush had decided as early as his presidential campaign in the year 2000 that he would find a way to fight an Iraq war to unseat Saddam. I was in the studio with Arab-American journalist Osama Siblani on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" program on March 11, 2005, when Siblani reported a May 2000 encounter he had with then-candidate Bush in a hotel in Troy, Mich. "He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 Republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq." According to Siblani, Bush added that "he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States." Siblani points out that Bush at that point was privy to no classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs and had already made up his mind on the issue.

Siblani's account of Bush's stance is virtually identical to the impressions Dearlove brought back from Washington a little over two years later: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Iraq had long played the great white whale to W.'s Ahab, and the chance to move decisively against Saddam was intrinsic to his presidential ambitions.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described to Ron Susskind in "The Price of Loyalty" the first Bush national security meeting of principals on Jan. 30, 2001. He writes that after Bush announced he would simply disengage from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and "unleash Sharon," he made it clear that Iraq would be a priority. "The hour almost up, Bush had assignments for everyone ... Rumsfeld and [Joint Chiefs chair Gen. H. Hugh] Shelton, he said, 'should examine our military options.' That included rebuilding the military coalition from the 1991 Gulf War, examining 'how it might look' to use U.S. ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq ... Ten days in, and it was about Iraq." Bush hit the ground running with regard to Iraq, shunting aside key U.S. foreign-policy goals -- such as a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict -- in favor of exploring military options against Saddam Hussein. O'Neill reports a sense at the meeting that the reluctance to commit ground forces to an Asian war, a legacy of the Vietnam War, had ended with the advent of the Bush presidency.

An Iraq war might have been a hard sell, even for the skilled and highly manipulative Bush team. But Sept. 11 ensured that they could get congressional approval and public support for a war. Americans were angry and willing to lash out in any direction specified by the president. Former terrorism czar Richard Clarke related that on the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, Bush "grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. 'Look,' he told us, 'I know you have a lot to do and all ... but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way...'" When Clarke protested that it was clearly an al-Qaida operation, Bush insisted, "Just look. I want to know any shred ... Look into Iraq, Saddam." According to Clarke, Bush said it "testily."

Clarke reveals that Rumsfeld was already, on the afternoon of Sept. 12, "talking about broadening the objectives of our response and 'getting Iraq.'" Although early accounts of National Security Council meetings after the attacks highlighted the role of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in pressing for an immediate war on Iraq, it has become increasingly clear that he was only one such voice, and hardly the most senior.

Astonishingly, the Bush administration almost took the United States to war against Iraq in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. We know about this episode from the public account of Sir Christopher Meyer, then the U.K. ambassador in Washington. Meyer reported that in the two weeks after Sept. 11, the Bush national security team argued back and forth over whether to attack Iraq or Afghanistan. It appears from his account that Bush was leaning toward the Iraq option.

Meyer spoke again about the matter to Vanity Fair for its May 2004 report, "The Path to War." Soon after Sept. 11, Meyer went to a dinner at the White House, "attended also by Colin Powell, [and] Condi Rice," where "Bush made clear that he was determined to topple Saddam. 'Rumors were already flying that Bush would use 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq,' Meyer remembers." When British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Washington on Sept. 20, 2001, he was alarmed. If Blair had consulted MI6 about the relative merits of the Afghanistan and Iraq options, we can only imagine what well-informed British intelligence officers in Pakistan were cabling London about the dangers of leaving bin Laden and al-Qaida in place while plunging into a potential quagmire in Iraq. Fears that London was a major al-Qaida target would have underlined the risks to the United Kingdom of an "Iraq first" policy in Washington.

Meyer told Vanity Fair, "Blair came with a very strong message -- don't get distracted; the priorities were al-Qaida, Afghanistan, the Taliban." He must have been terrified that the Bush administration would abandon London to al-Qaida while pursuing the great white whale of Iraq. But he managed to help persuade Bush. Meyer reports, "Bush said, 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.'" Meyer also said, in spring 2004, that it was clear "that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions." In short, Meyer strongly implies that Blair persuaded Bush to make war on al-Qaida in Afghanistan first by promising him British support for a later Iraq campaign.

He also points to an excellent website maintained by a media service in a country where all the main$tream media isn't owned by Department of Defense contractors.

The lies documented are mostly how Tony Blair lied to Britain, but we know who owns this poodle.

...8 March 2002

A top secret government paper looks at the policy of regime change but cautions that there is not yet any legal justification. The paper advises that the only certain means of removing Saddam is by a massive ground invasion.

"... against the background of our desire to re-integrate a law-abiding Iraq into the international community, we examine the two following policy options:
# a toughening of the existing containment policy, facilitated by 11 September; and
# regime change by military means: a new departure which would require the construction of a coalition and a legal justification.

"A full opinion should be sought from the Law Officers if the above options are developed further. But in summary CONTAINMENT generally involves the implementation of existing UNSCRs [United Nations Security Council Resolutions] and has a firm legal foundation. Of itself, REGIME CHANGE has no basis in international law.

Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction], although our intelligence is poor. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime was threatened, though there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD.

All options have lead times. If an invasion is contemplated this autumn, then a decision will need to be taken in principle six months in advance..."

Defence and Overseas Secretariat (ODSEC), Iraq: Options Paper, marked "Secret UK Eyes Only"

14 March 2002

The dimensions of a new policy on Iraq become clearer - the Prime Minister will 'not budge' in his support for regime change, writes his senior foreign policy advisor:

"I had dinner with Condi [Condoleezza Rice, then US National Security Advisor] on Tuesday; and talks and lunch with her and an NSC [National Secutiry Council] team on Wednesday (to which Christopher Meyer also came).

We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option."

David Manning to the Prime Minister, marked "Secret - Strictly Personal"

18 March 2002

The British Ambassador in Washington outlines the new Iraq strategy - the government will need a "clever" plan to convince the public and parliament of the threat from Saddam. Regime change would be a "tough sell" in Britain.

Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, came to Sunday lunch on 17 March.

"On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs [Security Council Resolutions] and the critical importance of the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy.

"If the UK were to join the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have to be able to take a critical mass of parliamentary and public opinion with us."

Christopher Meyer to Sir David Manning, marked "Confidential and Personal"...

This war is so good for the Empire in so many ways, but only as long as the people they need to carry it out want to keep on fooling themselves about it.