The Daily Background

In a press conference at the White House, the President recently said:

No President wants war.

Well. If that’s true, then you, Mr President– are “no President”. The Times today has a story headlined “Bush Was Set on Path to War”. Check this out:

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

And then compare that with this, later in the article:

“The public record at the time, including numerous statements by the President, makes clear that the administration was continuing to pursue a diplomatic solution into 2003,” [a spokesman for the National Security Council] said.

Diplomatic means? This was from January 2003, and “The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March”? Utter bullshit. You can read the NYT article here. It should also be noted that British Channel 4 and Guardian reported on parts of the memo in early February. At the time, I blogged about it here.

Filed under: Iraq Related, Z-TDB Blog