# CBS 60 Minutes --- Iraq War Planned Pre-9/11?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 11, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897 "2004-01-11T00:57:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/21 "2004-01-11T22:37:20Z")
Just as a matter of principle, I don’t ever take the word of someone who was fired when they talk about their previous employers.
However, I’m not dismissing this out of hand. He may be telling the truth here, but too many times you find people like this with an axe to grind because of the shoddy treatment they think they were afforded.
Time will tell.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/22 "2004-01-11T22:48:01Z")
I agree. Beware of ex-government types selling books. Doesn’t mean it’s not true, but he’s go a high standard to meet in order to be believed.
I await Colin Powell’s tell-all book.🙂 Actually, if Bush wins this year and Powell is not SoS in '05, that will be, in and of itself, a pretty damning indictment of Bush’s foreign policies. Not that Powell has been some incredibly effective SoS, but I think he has a tad more integrity than your typical pol.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/23 "2004-01-11T22:54:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> \*\*On the one hand, it has been over 25 years since I accepted anything that _60 Minutes_ has broadcast without confirmation from three independent sources. They have been living on an early reputation for probity that they have not maintained in a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time.
> \*\*
And more particularly, there’s a perfectly good whole book coming out in two days. O’Neill was my favorite cabinet secretary, and it pains me that the administration got so tired so quickly of the tell-the-truth show they signed up for when they hired him. But basing a Great Debate on a book blurb rather than a book, particularly when the blurb is on 60 Minutes, seems, well, premature.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/24 "2004-01-11T23:13:09Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by John Mace \ ***I await Colin Powell’s tell-all book.🙂 Actually, if Bush wins this year and Powell is not SoS in '05, that will be, in and of itself, a pretty damning indictment of Bush’s foreign policies. Not that Powell has been some incredibly effective SoS, but I think he has a tad more integrity than your typical pol.**
> [@](#):
>
> WASHINGTON (CNN) – The White House expects that President Bush would have to assemble a new foreign policy team, including a secretary of state, if he were to win a second term, administration officials said Monday.
>
> Secretary of State Colin Powell has long told friends and associates that he planned to serve in the Cabinet no longer than one term, but speculation about his future increased Monday after the Washington Post published and article that said Powell and his top deputy, Richard Armitage, have recently reaffirmed their intentions to step down even if the president is re-elected.
>
> Powell, interviewed on Radio Sawa, the U.S. government’s Arabic-language station that broadcasts to the Middle East, called the newspaper report “nonsense” and said it wasn’t true that he had told the president of his plans to leave.
Source: [CNN, August 04, 2003](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/04/powell.2nd.term/)
Of course, this may have been a trial balloon story.
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### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/25 "2004-01-12T01:06:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by John Mace \*
> Not that Powell has been some incredibly effective SoS, but I think he has a tad more integrity than your typical pol.
Go back and re-read the transcript of Powell’s UN presentation last February, and tell me if you still think he has integrity.
Feh. I gave up on Colin Powell after that hour-long bullshit session. Paul O’Neill’s claims are just more "I told you so"s for all us skeptics out here.
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### Author:  [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/26 "2004-01-12T01:41:44Z")
I saw the 60 minutes segment on O’Neil and it was pretty interesting. A couple of clarifications are in order: O’Neil didn’t write the book and isn’t benefiting financially from it. Secondly he gave a thousands of pages of documents to the writer so it isn’t as if we have to rely on O’Neil’s word. In any case he sounded pretty credible.
As for the specific points I am not sure what to make of the Iraq claims. Apparently the administration was planning for things like post-Saddam war-crimes tribunals even before 9-11. So it wasn’t just war-planning. Still I am not sure what the background was and whether such planning is routine or not. I am sure the book will have more information.
O’Neil’s criticisms of Bush being ignorant and uninterested about the details of economic policymaking rang pretty true. Bush has always seemed uncomfortable with serious policy discussion when he didn’t have a script to read from. As mentioned above there are documents which apparently back up O’Neil’s criticisms.
All in all this sounds like a pretty revealing look at the inadequacies of the Bush administration and its policy-making. I think the book will be worth reading and we should be better able to evaluate its claims when it comes out.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/27 "2004-01-12T01:58:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by DBNY \*
> \*\*re: evidence of WMD
>
> Does every cabinet level Secretary have access to all intelligence data? If not, where is the line drawn? Treasury is pretty important, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they aren’t privy to all intelligence data like DoD or State would be.
>
> Hopefully the interviewer will be tough and ask questions like this. I won’t begin to be convinced unless O’Neil states he was told there’s no evidence, but we’re going in anyway. Just because he didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. \*\*
His assertion is that he _saw_ all the intel but that the Bush extropolations from it were bullshit.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/28 "2004-01-12T02:05:41Z")
IIRC, O’Neill was also a member of the National Security Council. Security clearance up to “Burn Before Reading”.
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### Author:  [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/29 "2004-01-12T02:08:51Z")
O’Neill lost me when he failed to see how the picture he was painting of Bush was unflattering. Regarding the pre-planning of the war in Iraq, I like what my mother had to say about it: “So what?”
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/30 "2004-01-12T02:26:30Z")
Wow, what an insghtful mother you have. :rolleyes:
Here’s the “so what,” dude. It means that Bush intended from day one to stage an illegal, non-defensive invasion of another country to gain control of its oil. It means that this was a politically motivated act from the beginning. It means that all the talk about WMDs and imminent threats were manipulative lies intended to exploit the tragedy of 9/11 for personal gain. It means that your illegitimate president is a liar and a criminal.
It means that everything he said to justify the invasion was bullshit. It means that he intended, even before 9/11, to kill American soldiers for no reason.
It means a lot. You should educate your mother.
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### Author:  [@Chicago\_Faucet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicago_Faucet)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/31 "2004-01-12T03:29:46Z")
Except that the [Iraq Liberation Act of 1998](http://www.fcnl.org/issues/int/sup/iraq_liberation.htm), signed by Clinton, says that:
> [@](#):
>
> SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ.
>
> It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.
…so it wasn’t odd to have such a plan.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/32 "2004-01-12T03:54:12Z")
Is it just me or are the words “support efforts to remove the regime” a rather far cry from “Invade!”?
And, no, it isn’t particularly odd to have such a plan. Theres probably a plan lying around somewhere for the invasion and occupation of Belgium, should that prove necessary. Are such plans discussed at a cabinet level? Most unlikely.
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### Author:  [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/33 "2004-01-12T03:57:23Z")
By **DtC** : “It means that he intended, even before 9/11, to kill American soldiers for no reason.”
No, it means that he intended to start a war to remove Saddam from power. Big difference from “no reason”.
You Bush Bashers would have more credibility if you’d stick to facts and cut down on the hyperbole.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/34 "2004-01-12T04:10:38Z")
**John** has a point. The simple unadorned facts are sufficiently damning. When the campaigning GeeDubya stated his opposition to military adventures in “nation building”, he was most likely lying through his teeth. Similarly when he assured us that he hadn’t made up his mind and was sincerely pursuing any chance of peace. Also, it would seem, bald faced lies.
Your point is well taken. We don’t need “spin”. We have the facts, they can keep the spin. Speaking for proud and patriotic Bush Bashers everywhere, we are pleased to have your support.
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### Author:  [@Fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fang)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/35 "2004-01-12T04:11:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by elucidator \*
> \*\*Is it just me or are the words “support efforts to remove the regime” a rather far cry from “Invade!”?
>
> And, no, it isn’t particularly odd to have such a plan. Theres probably a plan lying around somewhere for the invasion and occupation of Belgium, should that prove necessary. Are such plans discussed at a cabinet level? Most unlikely. \*\*
This is subject to change, however, if a law is passed stating that the US’s official policy is regime change in Belgium.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/36 "2004-01-12T04:26:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> No, it means that he intended to start a war to remove Saddam from power. Big difference from “no reason”
An _illegal_ war, which would result in the deaths of American soldiers for no reason related to the defense of the US or anyone else.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/37 "2004-01-12T05:08:07Z")
Note the response of the White House itself, and its loyalists here and elsewhere, to this material: That O’Neill is an ass with self-serving motivations. NOT that anything he has said is factually wrong.
To some of us, the facts of planning an invasion are just a little higher on the importance scale than timing the profit of a book (certainly a novel tactic in politics, too, huh?). Shall we add this as another example of the partisan right’s loss of a moral compass, one that considers Bush’s lying about a war as equivalent or even less than Clinton’s blowjob?
Just to remind you: This was a preplanned invasion of another country, decided upon without any facts to lead us to conclude it was necessary. We executed people for doing that, people who hadn’t even tried to lie about their reasons, at Tokyo if not Nuremburg. It matters. Book releases don’t. Got it, gang?
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### Author:  [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/38 "2004-01-12T05:25:22Z")
I’m almost certain it was pre-planned. Of course they won’t deny it. I’d wager there were contingency plans by the Pentagon dating from Clinton’s terms too. You have to remember that the CIA had been running amok trying to get a coup in there for ages and the military was stationed in Saudi Arabia because of Saddam, we were protecting the upper and lower parts of the country from Iraqi troops movements…I have no idea how much of this is legal or moral or what, but we’ve certainly had all kinds of ongoing plans WRT Iraq.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/39 "2004-01-12T05:32:04Z")
Planning _how_ to do something, _if_ it comes to that, is a completely different issue from deciding _to_ do it.
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### Author:  [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-60-minutes-iraq-war-planned-pre-9-11/223897/40 "2004-01-12T06:05:39Z")
So if Bush had Iraq chosen for a military excercise before 9/11 how come they didn’t have anything more credible to justify an invasion ?
Its bad enough to do silly wars… its another to badly justify it, badly plan the aftermath and get so little support for it.
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