I'm wondering to those who read this....does this bother you? Do you like being misled? Do you believe the story? Do you thinkt he ends justifies the means in this case and that lying wouldn't matter even if it was true?

No doubt many of you have been reading about this but due to the strange silence of some war mongers on the Iraq issue lately, I feel compelled to post this.

oh and for those following recent developments ont his, Blair hasn't come out looking too good either.

here it is, there's many other sources but I jsut chose this one.



World misled about Iraq war

By Roy Eccleston, Washington correspondent

April 19, 2004

GEORGE W. Bush is facing new claims he misled the world about his plans for war on Iraq, with a book by legendary reporter Bob Woodward claiming the US President secretly called for a fresh war strategy to oust Saddam Hussein just 72 days after the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001.

In Plan of Attack, the Washington Post reporter says Mr Bush decided in January 2003 that he would launch the war – even though two months later on March 6 he publicly claimed: "I've not made up our mind about military action."

The book, to be released this week, says the Bush war cabinet met repeatedly on a plan to attack Iraq from late 2001, and channelled $US700 million ($950 million) for military preparations in the Persian Gulf in a way that hid the money from the US Congress.

While Mr Bush told reporters that a meeting at his Texas ranch on December 28, 2001, had been about the war in Afghanistan, it was really the first extensive briefing from US commander General Tommy Franks about the Iraq war plan he had been ordered to prepare.

"I'm right now focused on the military operations in Afghanistan," Mr Bush told reporters at a "war update" news conference that day. No mention was made of Iraq.

Mr Bush told Woodward in more than three hours of interviews that in late 2001 he ordered the Pentagon to prepare secret military options for an Iraq invasion, although the book says the President did not immediately tell US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice or CIA director George Tenet.

His reason for secrecy, Mr Bush said, was to avoid "enormous international angst and domestic speculation". He said war had always been his "absolute last option".

But Mr Bush said he believed the war was right, even though he knew when he made the decision "it could cost the presidency, I fully realised that".

The book's release comes at a tumultuous time for Mr Bush, who is fighting an election campaign against a backdrop of mounting US casualties and turmoil in Iraq and a September 11 inquiry that has revealed an array of mistakes in US terrorism policy.

With one poll showing his support at just 43 per cent, Mr Bush is at a low in his presidency. The new allegations will provide ammunition for critics who claim the Iraq war distracted the US from its real main threat, al-Qa'ida.

Plan of Attack says Mr Bush opted to go to war in January 2003, and that he told Dr Rice just after the New Year holiday he was increasingly frustrated with the United Nations weapons inspectors. "We're not winning," he said. "Time is not on our side here. Probably going to have to, we're going to have to go to war."

Mr Bush told the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, of his decision before telling US Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to Woodward.

The book claims there is a poisonous relationship between Vice-President Dick Cheney – described as "steamrolling" the Iraq War – and Mr Powell, who was initially reluctant to invade.

In January 2003, Mr Powell warned the President that if the US invaded Iraq he would "own it", and invoked what he called the Pottery Barn (a US furnishings store) rule: "You break it, it's yours."

Woodward writes that Mr Powell believed Mr Cheney had "the fever" and an "unhealthy fixation" with Saddam. Even so, Mr Powell agreed to back the war.

Mr Bush, at a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the weekend, fudged the issue of when he ordered the Iraqi war plan to be drawn up. "I can't remember exact dates that far back," he told reporters.

But he then said that on September 15, 2001, "I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response (to the September 11 attacks), and the subject of Iraq came up and I said, as plainly as I possibly could, we'll focus on Afghanistan."

On the WMD claims that were the initial justification for the war, the book offers the new insight that Mr Bush thought the CIA's evidence against Iraq was disappointing when he first received a detailed presentation.

According to Woodward, Mr Bush's response to the CIA briefing was "nice try". He insisted the public would not understand it. "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?" he asked Mr Tenet. "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk," the CIA boss – a holdover from the Clinton years – insisted, reportedly waving his arms about.

The book's claims of Mr Bush's early focus on Iraq dovetail with similar charges made by former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and more recent accusations by Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism supremo at the White House.

Mr Clarke claimed Mr Bush took him aside the day after September 11 and demanded he "look into Iraq, Saddam", even though the experts were convinced the attacks were al-Qa'ida's.

A little over a month later, according to Plan of Attack, Mr Bush pulled Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld into a small office next to the White House Situation Room and questioned him about the shape of the Iraq war plan.

When Mr Rumsfeld said it was out of date, the President ordered a new one, even though General Franks had his hands full with the fighting in Afghanistan.

Mr Rumsfeld was ordered by Mr Bush to keep the work secret, and when he asked to involve Mr Tenet was told not to do so at that stage, the book claims.

Even Dr Rice was told only that the Pentagon was doing work on Iraq, without the full details, Woodward writes.

By New Year 2003, Mr Bush faced his moment of decision, although he did not reveal it to the world for another few months. He found himself increasingly frustrated by the inability of UN weapons inspectors, allowed back into Iraq, to find anything, the book says.

Mr Bush believed Saddam was about to fool the world again, and resolved not to allow him to do it.

"I was concerned people would focus on not Saddam, not the danger he posed, not his deception, but focus on the process, and thereby Saddam would be able to kind of skate through once again," the President told Woodward, according to extracts from the book published by the Washington Post.

"I felt stressed. My jaw muscle got so tight . . . there was a lot of tension during that last holiday season (Christmas 2002-New Year 2003," Mr Bush said.

At the same time, UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was telling the US the military pressure from its troop build-up was helping him to win co-operation.

"How long does he think I can do this?" Mr Bush asked Dr Rice just after New Year's Day in 2003, according to the book. "A year? I can't. The United States can't stay in this position while Saddam plays games with the inspectors."

That convinced Dr Rice the President had made up his mind. Woodward writes that while the US diplomatic efforts would continue for 10 more weeks, "he had reached a point of no return".

In early January, the books says, Mr Bush told Mr Rumsfeld: "Look, we're going to have to do this, I'm afraid."