FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL ONEILL SAYS INVASION OF IRAQ WAS PLANNED IN THE FIRST DAYS...

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[Tumbleweed_Connection]

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?"

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."

Developing...

[MinuteGal]

Dean Ritter Benedict O'Neill.

Leni

[Rome2000]

"I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening . . . It was mostly a monologue."

Why would Bush bother talking to an idiot?.

Funny how the economy has turned around ever since O'Neil got thrown out on his ass.

[joesbucks]

If I recall Clinton's were only for legacy reasons. Tying Bush to Clinton, while convienent in this instance is the wrong thing to do.

[Miss Marple]

Really? Who was telling "us" this? Myself, I thought we exchanged opinions here, and there were a variety of them on things like Kosovo, NAFTA, welfare reform, and the like, all of which were things the Clinton administration did but which some on this forum supported.

[michaelt]

I wouldn't say that Bush's policy was a seamless continuation of Clinton's policy, but the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 made offical US policy getting rid of Hussein and the creation of a democratic government in Iraq.

Source

But I wouldn't call it a continuation of policy from one president to another because the Clinton didn't have the will to carry it out, and Bush did (albeit with the push of 9/11).

[Always Right]

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," he tells Stahl.

I guess Stahl felt that Saddam was a good person and needed to stay????? What a dork, of course Saddam needed to go. Saddam was the most powerful and dangerous leader in the middle east and one who happened to be a maniac. Saddam was not only bad for Iraq, but bad for the whole region. The Democrats now act amazed now that all the other middle east leaders are straightening out now that Saddam is gone. The middle east was a time bomb waiting to go off, and Bush has turned the corner and is on the way to bringing longterm peace to this volatile region. Bush is gonna bring peace to the region like Reagan ended the cold war, but of course neither will get credit from the dishonest democrats for it.

[Jumper]

And we have plans (contingency plans) to deal with Iran, Iraq, France, Germany, China, places in South American, Africa, and even within our own boarders. This is much ado about nothing out or the ordinary.

[Snerfling]

we also have a plan for North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Cuba...

Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Russia, China, Japan, ...

[MizSterious]

Try again, joesbucks (are you working for Dean or something?). It is backstabbing if he is trumping up the contingency plans that are always drawn up, and trying to make it look like something else. It is indeed backstabbing if he is revealing state secrets (at least one of the documents were so marked). The Party of Treason is becoming quite adept at "leaking" secret documents, thereby living up the title given to them by Lincoln.

[mystery-ak]

BTW....who is Ron Suskind...any relation to that flaming lib David....I wonder who he shopped this book to...there's a lot more to this story.

[Rome2000]

Tying Bush to Clinton, while convienent in this instance is the wrong thing to do.

All Adminsisrations have these plans.

This should have been pointed out in the story, but it would take an unbiased jornalist to point that out.

[jriemer]

"We've had a plan for military action against Iraq for decades. Here's a news flash...we also have one for North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Cuba..."

Zactly. I had a brother-in-law in intelligence, and I saw him the week after we liberated Grenada. I jokingly asked him who we planned to invade next.

He looked at me steely-eyed and replied, "We have plans to invade EVERYbody."

It wouldn't surprise me none the least if we had a nuclear strike package and invasion plans for targeting the Vatican.

[joesbucks]

Specifics.....tough to tell. Maybe it was all the banee's that have left us. But it was common and it was accepted. Wasn't much in the way of "great policy, too bad it's Clinton".

[Monti Cello]

Why suddenly is the Clinton administrations plans so dead on when they were so wrong while he was in office?

Let me clarify...Bush's actions were directly in line with Clinton's stated policy -- his follow-through was obviously pathetic.

In other words, war on Saddam was in no way a reversal of existing policy, it was simply a serious enforcement of that policy.

[jriemer]

Is he arrogant, or just plain stupid?

Yes

[Praxeologue]

Is it backstabbing and disloyality IF it is factual?

without question

[Godfollow]

To the Idiot Ruben... Ever heard of contingency plans? Clinton had them, fool... it would have been irresponsible to not have plans... What an idiot fool curmudgeon!

[Mr Rogers]

I've spent 20 years in the military. We plan for everything - the detail depending on the probability. Given the fact we had spent the previous 10 years flying over Iraq, I'm sure we had a pretty detailed plan for invading Iraq BEFORE GWB entered office. (No personal knowledge, but it would be consistent with military thinking.)

The difference is that GWB wasn't interested in using Iraq to divert attention from his sexual escapades - so he took the potential need seriously.

This is only news to someone who thinks the military is full of buffoons who couldn't recognize the potential need to invade Iraq since at least the mid-90s.

[clintonh8r]

There are contingency plans to invade many countries. It's part of what the DoD does. Of course, this little fact will be ignored by the presstitutes and the RATs. After all, not telling the whole truth isn't the same as lying, is it?

[CFC__VRWC]

There is a thread of loyalty in those that have been with Bush before. O'Neil was always an outsider.

Maybe with former Bush Administration officials. Once the media runs out of those, they have an endless supply of cranks and malcontents who have never been within 1000 miles of the Bush White House, but have some marginal connection to the president and are all too eager to spew Bush hatred if it guarantees them some TV time. If the media could find a second grade classmate of George Bush who claimed that Bush once shoved him on the playground and stole his lunch money, that classmate would get saturation coverage.