The Zeal for War With Iraq

As the past history tries to get erased and rewritten by the Administration, just when the public is about to finally learn the truth, about why and how we went to war with Iraq, it's important to remember how badly this Administration wanted to attack Iraq. Here's what Richard Clarke told 60 Minutes about what happened the day after 9/11:

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut
the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never
said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt
that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this."

I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at
this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a
connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back
with that answer. We wrote a report."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI
experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA
and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the
report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National
Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer.
... Do it again.'

"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did
it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people
around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that
he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."

Now the person who bounced it back was Rice's Deputy National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley. So what did Hadley have to say in this very report about Clarke's charges:

As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Hadley
says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the
president ever occurred."

When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us
independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual
witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said."

And, of course, later on the White House conceded that such a meeting did occur, just like it ultimately admitted that the Niger piece shouldn't have been in the SOTU, but counterargued that it was entirely appropriate for Bush to inquire if Iraq had been involved. As Josh Marshall rightly pointed out in subsequent posts in the spring of 2004, Hadley could have gotten his initial denial of the incident from only a few people, including Rice, but the most likely person was Bush himself.

Thus, the whole picture painted of Hadley in the incident is this: Clarke is told by Bush to look and see if Saddam is behind 9/11. Clarke tells Bush no way, it was Al Qaeda. Bush says Look again. Clarke reports back to Hadley that Iraq was not involved and is told "Wrong answer… Do it again."

Then when Clarke goes public with the story, Hadley passes on a lie from Bush denying that the meeting ever happened, only to backtrack once the evidence is irrefutable. Sounds a lot like Niger.

Just keep that in mind as you evaluate what the Bush Administration and Hadley say in the weeks to come about Iraq. The lies simply do not end.
- posted by Joshua @ 7:11 PM