Do you have a citation for this tidbit?
Or is it one of those “common sense” things?
How about this? Bush and team wanted to do something about Iraq from the getgo so that GWB could avenge his daddy’s honor. Although they didn’t have any CONCLUSIVE evidence of WMD’s, they felt that they could use the common belief that Saddam DID have such weapons as the hook to draw in public and Congressional support for an attack on Iraq. While they truly fully expected to find WMD’s, they were caught flat footed when it became evident that there weren’t any to be found. If they gave any thought to being wrong on this ASSUMPTION, they felt that it would blow over, that everyone would be so happy that Sadamm was gone, that the WMD issue would be relegated to small print on the back page of the newspaper. They also hoped and thought that they would quickly subdue Iraq and bask in the glow of a successful campaign, which again would allow WMD’s to be forgotten about.
The issue isn’t really if they lied or not on the WMD’s, but the fact that they used inconclusive evidence and implied an immediate and direct threat on the USA in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Furthermore, when it became clear that WMD’s were not to be found, instead of apologizing to the world, they tried to redirect the argument to Sadamm was a bad guy (which everyone was willing to acknowledge anyway), that Iraq was a center of worldwide terrorism, that Iraq was closely tied to al Qaeda, etc., etc.
Sounds like one of those “conservative talk radio” things, right up there with “If we wanted Iraq’s oil, we could have just bought it from Saddam.” :rolleyes:
Never mind that Dick Cheney’s energy policy specifically said we wanted Iraq’s oil, never mind that the neo-cons have been dreaming of invading Iraq since the mid-90s, never mind that the PNAC had plans to invade even if Saddam wasn’t in power – somehow, it’s all “Since we didn’t nuke Iraq, that proves we don’t want their oil.” Uh, yeah…