Mickey Nardo has distilled the documents and statements that led us to invade Iraq -- and he makes the case crystal clear, in my view, that this was a planned strategy, even before the 9/11 attacks, which by the way Iraq had nothing to do with anyway.

Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Secretary of Treasury, has said that in his first cabinet meeting (long before 9/11) Bush said that he wanted to find a way to invade Iraq.

For anyone interested in getting a perspective on it, it's well worth reading his last few posts: http://1boringoldman.com/

Here's his conclusion:

There is more than enough evidence to prove that our invasion of Iraq was already in the works before 9/11. It would be our way of launching the new foreign policy position of American dominance; of establishing an American presence in the Middle East; and would give us access to Iraqi oil fields, solving the problem Cheney discussed two years earlier . . .

The Administration of President George W. Bush, lead by Vice President Dick Cheney, used the fear and anguish Americans felt about the 9/11 attack to create a false Casus Belli [case for war] against Iraq. It was a consciously motivated act conceived in secrecy and deceit - an idiosyncratic and frankly unAmerican notion about foreign policy that was inserted into our history at great cost in dollars, lives, and international reputation. Had we had all the facts, we could’ve known the truth two weeks after the attack, but we didn’t have all the facts. We just had our pain. It was a crime. We simply cannot pass over it as if it didn’t happen. The invasion of Iraq was as great an attack on America as the planes flying into the Twin Towers…

Amen.

Ralph