George Bush's plan to start the war

by

Gerald Plessner

February 8, 2006 - Recent disclosures indicate that president George W. Bush had doubts about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when he told Americans that we were in imminent danger and had to go to war against Iraq.

This revelation is contained in a new edition of the book Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a professor of international law at University College, London.

The book provides details of a discussion between the president and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on January 31, 2003, just two months before the invasion. A detailed report on the memo is available at www.guardian.co.uk/print/O,,53900333-103550,00.html.

In the meeting, the president told the prime minister that our government was prepared to fly an American U-2 aircraft painted in United Nations colors and escorted by U.S. fighter aircraft, over Iraq in hopes of precipitating an attack with the intent to use that attack as a cause for war.

The president told Blair that "the diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning" and the prime minister told the president that the United Kingdom was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam."

The president told Blair that our government was so worried about the lack of hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that we were considering the idea of the flight over Iraq.

The president also said that there was a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated" and that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups" in Iraq.

Ironically, the meeting took place a few days before then Secretary of State Colin Powell made his presentation to the United Nations about Iraq's WMD program.

Blair will probably be in political trouble over the disclosures. Three weeks after his meeting with Bush, he told the House of Commons that his government was giving "Saddam one further, final chance to disarm voluntarily".

The question now is, "What will the impact of this disclosure have on George W. Bush?"

It is amazing that our current national leadership has no historical memory. Do they not know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which American ships were supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese gun boats, an allegation that was soon proven false?

It gave the United States a reason --- some would say an excuse --- to escalate our role in the Vietnam War, a decision with disastrous results.

When questioned about the statements in the memo, members of the administration will surely say that they always look at all the options but those mentioned by the president were discarded or not seriously considered.

Americans should not take lightly the proof that our president, vice president, secretaries of defense and state, and many of their top aides lied to us.

Congress must demand an accounting of what our top leaders really knew as they led our nation into a rush to war.

And if the president's appointees lied to the American people, and possibly to the president himself, they should be removed from office.

If as it now seems, the president and vice president knowingly lied to the American people, they should face the same fate.

About the author: Gerald Plessner is a Southern California businessman who writes regularly on issues of politics and culture. He would be pleased to hear from you and may be contacted at gerald@geraldplessner.com.