- FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL ONEILL SAYS INVASION OF
IRAQ WAS PLANNED IN THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LONG BEFORE
9/11, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SUNDAY ON "60 MINUTES"
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- The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion
of Iraq including the use of American troops within days of President Bush's
inauguration in January of 2001, not eight months later after the 9/11
attacks as has been previously reported. That is what former Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House
insider. O'Neill talks to Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast
on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Jan. 11 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television
Network.
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- "From the very beginning, there was a conviction
that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," he
tells Stahl. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has
the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do is a really huge leap,"
says O'Neill.
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- O'Neill, fired by the White House for his disagreement
on tax cuts, is the main source for an upcoming book, "The Price of
Loyalty," authored by Ron Suskind. Suskind says O'Neill and other
White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in
the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military
options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath
of Saddam's downfall, including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping
troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil. "There
are memos," Suskind tells Stahl, "One of them marked 'secret'
says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'" A Pentagon document, says Suskind,
titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," outlines
areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world
from...30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq,"
Suskind says.
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- In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised
that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq
should be invaded. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That
was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'"
says O'Neill in the book.
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- Suskind also writes about a White House meeting in which
he says the president seems to be wavering about going forward with his
second round of tax cuts. "Haven't we already given money to rich
people," Suskind says the president uttered, according to a nearly
verbatim transcript of an Economic Team meeting he says he obtained from
someone at the meeting, "Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle?"
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- O'Neill, who was asked to resign because of his opposition
to the tax cut, says he doesn't think his tell-all account in this book
will be attacked by his former employers as sour grapes. "I will be
really disappointed if [the White House] reacts that way," he tells
Stahl. "I can't imagine that I am going to be attacked for telling
the truth."
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- Comment
Thomas Buyea
1-10-4
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- Well, now we know even better what we already knew:
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- That the Bush (Zionist Neocon) administration carried
out 911 - or at least knew the Terrorists were going to do it - so they
held back the fighter planes and put explosives in the WTC to make sure
it would fall down! I guess he would expect us to consider him humane for
waiting an hour to set off the explosives so some of the people could get
out?
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- I hope this is the straw that will break this camel's
back. Impeachment Now! And then Charges of War Crimes Nationally and Internationally.
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