Bush ordered 'contingency' plan for confronting Iraq during Afghan war

AP | 3/24/04

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush directed the Pentagon to develop plans to confront Iraq if it tried to exploit the U.S. military's engagement with Afghanistan in fall 2001, a White House official said Wednesday.

But spokesman Scott McClellan insisted the "contingency" plan was not a blueprint for a full-scale invasion of Iraq, as Bush's former counterterrorism chief contends in a new book.

"Obviously, it was important to have contingencies in place in case Iraq tried to take advantage of the president's military action in Afghanistan," McClellan said.

Moreover, Iraq had been firing for years at American pilots patroling the no-fly zone there, McClellan said.

But he stressed that the decision to invade Iraq a year ago "came much later."

Any suggestion that Bush was drawing up plans in 2001 for the Iraq war he launched in March 2003 is "revisionist history," McClellan said.

Clarke wrote in the book that Bush was preoccupied with Iraq before and after the attacks, at the expense of fighting al-Qaida. Bush asked him just after the Sept. 11 terror attacks to find out whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings, Clarke wrote.

The White House has bristled at the suggestion that Bush planned to invade Iraq before March 2003 -- an accusation that former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, another administration official now critical of Bush, also made in a recent book.

[stylin19a]

good job...thanx

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

Exactly!

[Mo1]

Honey, you don't KNOW what "hiding a credit card bill" is unless you signed up for AOL for $19.95 for 10 hours.

Oh I did that .. ended up with a $280.00 bill *L*

Let's say I learned my lesson

[Howlin]

$75???? My yard guy is more than that..........LOL.

I wonder if we could designate a couple of "users" for the same user ID.

[Mo1]

Clarke is on Larry King Live tonight if you are interested in beating the heck out of you TV

[freedumb2003]

I wonder if I start using cuss words, will I get banned?

Not for cuss words, but the accursed double-post OTOH.... Hmmmmmm

[A Citizen Reporter]

No kidding? For the OJ trial? Me too! Only I was in a prodigy chat room for that one. Also, unlimited time.......never did like aol.

[Howlin]

ended up with a $280.00 bill

*Sneer* Chump change, my dear. :-)

[kcvl]

Saddam's Iraqi Foes Heartened By Clinton
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 16, 1998; Page A17

President Clinton's first explicit call for a "new government" in Baghdad and his pledge to implement a new plan for arming opponents of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein heartened opposition leaders yesterday. But Clinton's comments appeared to signal more of a heightened political effort to destabilize the Iraqi regime over time than any immediate military strategy for overthrowing it.

Senior administration officials said Clinton's words were intended to signal an "intensification" of support for a broad array of Iraqi opposition groups and in that sense represented a change in policy.

A British diplomat closely monitoring the Iraq crisis called Clinton's expression of support for Iraqi opposition groups in an effort to help create a new regime in Baghdad "one policy change we've seen out of this weekend." The diplomat called the shift "a more forward-leaning American move to go beyond containment."

But Defense Secretary William S. Cohen made it clear that Clinton's vow of support for the Iraqi Liberation Act -- a congressional initiative that makes $97 million in military support available to the Iraqi opposition -- did not mean that such aid would be provided to opposition groups any time soon.

"He was not calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein," Cohen told reporters at the White House. "What he was saying is that we are prepared and will work with opposition forces or groups to try to bring about in some future time a more democratic type of regime."


MORE...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/iraq111698b.htm

[Mo1]

O M G .... ROFL .. that bad huh?

[hoosiermama]

Think I'll change my tag line to "I wonder if Clarke's book revenue will cover the legal cost for the perjury he committed today!"

[Carolinamom]

OR we could have one user w/the title of Chief Investigator and send in our requests for specific topics. Problem: would probably be OVER worked!

[cookcounty]

The military makes contingency plans for all kinds of hypotheticals, always has, always should. That AP reports this as "news" shows how tragically stupid the journalists of America really are.

[kcvl]

"Mark my words," Clinton said on the eve of the 1998 bombing. "(Saddam) will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them."

Clinton subsequently came under fire from congressional leaders for allowing U.S. policy toward Iraq to "drift." In a letter dated Aug. 11, 1999, several congressmen, including Democratic presidential contender Sen. Joseph Lieberman, wrote:

"There is considerable evidence that Iraq continues to seek to develop and acquire weapons of mass destruction. The whole point of Operation Desert Fox was that we could not afford to wait until Saddam reconstituted his WMD capabilities."


http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:yprWw8sZCIEJ:www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/kp20040114.shtml+The+Iraq+Liberation+Act&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Carolinamom]

Even Cohen knew clinton was all words, no substance. As Madeline Albright said yesterday, "We talked and talked about it."

[Mo1]

Oh heck .. we don't need LexisNexis

We've got kcvl !!!

[nopardons]

Holy cow!

We've had a computer since IMB came out with it's first PC;early 1980 I think. Anyway, no matter how hard my husband tried to get me on the computer,I balked.Put your recipes on the puter he said. I gave him a VERY dirty look and told him that was nuts. Put all of your books on the computer,he suggested. WHAT FOR,I rejoined, since I knew where every book in the house was (not an easy feat, since I had 1,000s and now have even more,but they are all Dewy Decimaled, shelved by catagorey and/or author) and still do,though we've moved.

Then,during Clinton, as I spent day after day, with the T.V. and talk radio on, as I read through at least 3w papers a day, screaming at all of those things,my husband found Drudge and through Drudxged FR, And bout me WebTV. LOL

[kcvl]

'Clearly containment hasn't worked . . . Removal of Saddam is only option'

AJCONGRESS CALLS FOR MORE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF
IRAQ LIBERATION ACT INCLUDING USE OF AIR POWER IN
SUPPORT OF OPPOSITION FORCES WITHIN IRAQ

---

(July 13, 1999) Noting that intervention by an American military force can be decisive even when it amounts to less than a total military engagement -- as was demonstrated recently in Kosovo -- the American Jewish Congress today called on the United States to provide military and financial assistance to the opponents of Saddam Hussein to remove him and his government from power.

The policy was urged by AJCongress' high-level Commission on International Affairs, which is chaired by former New York Congressman Stephen J. Solarz. The Commission called on the Clinton Administration to fully implement the Iraq Liberation Act (ILA), passed last year by Congress, which requires the United States to arm the insurgents and allows providing air power in support of a military uprising.

"The Commission's call for action reflects its concern over the enormous and growing threat presented by Saddam to the region, including Israel, and the West, with his development of weapons of mass destruction," declared Solarz. "The dangers have increased given the removal of the UNSCOM (United Nations) weapons inspectors from Iraq. Saddam now has a free hand to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."

The AJCongress group expressed grave misgivings over the failure of the United States thus far to carry out the actions mandated by the ILA: "Clearly containment hasn't worked. Removal is the only option. There can be no stability in the area if Saddam remains in power and his weapons program continues and expands."

AJCongress President Jack Rosen, in announcing the Commission recommendations along with Solarz, said that following the United States' successful use of air power against Slobodan Milosevic, it was time to consider appropriate military options against Saddam. "President Clinton has proven that as Commander-in-Chief, he is willing to use this country's power for the pursuit of American goals. We must confront the fact that some measure of military involvement, if only giving support to opposition forces, may be the only way to remove the lethal danger Saddam represents."

The Commission expressed concern that the American public "seems distressingly unaware of the danger Saddam presents, especially given the absence of the weapons inspectors."

A possible strategy, the Commission declared, would call for insurgents, operating from areas controlled by American air power in the north and south of Iran, to link up with anti-Saddam elements in the rest of the country. "Because Saddam lacks the support of his people," the group noted, "it is not unlikely that important units of the Iraqi military, when confronted with a sizable force, will defect to the other side."

"Such a strategy would require the cooperation of neighboring states in the form of providing arms and air support to the resistance forces. But a firm American commitment to a policy designed to bring down the Ba'athist regime in Baghdad would doubtless provide a powerful incentive for this cooperation. In the final analysis, those states whose cooperation would be required for this purpose have even more to fear from Saddam than do we," the Commission maintained.

The AJCongress Commission acknowledged that there are no guarantees that the strategy would work. However, it maintained that it is preferable to the alternatives which haven't worked, such as sanctions, a coup, or the waging of a second Gulf War. "Nothing is risk free. But the risk of leaving Saddam in power is greater than the alternative of taking action to remove him," the group said.

The Commission adopted its policy following a presentation by Dr. Laurie Mylroie, Vice President of "Information for Democracy," a non-profit organization dealing with democracy in the Middle East, with a particular interest in Iraq. She is the author of the best seller, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (1990) and is now at work on a sequel, Study of Revenge: The Unfinished War of Saddam Hussein. In addition, she is publisher of Iraq News, an on-line e-mail newsletter.

---

The American Jewish Congress, founded in 1918 by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Justice Louis D. Brandeis and other distinguished Jews, specializes in combatting all forms of bigotry through law and legislation. Considered the legal voice of the American Jewish Community, it works to safeguard Jewish interests, protect basic freedoms enshrined in the American Bill of Rights and to advance the security of Israel.

[Howlin]

I said I signed up for the O.J. trial. I was in the Court TV chat room; for the whole trial.......LOL.

[nopardons]

You ALWAYS find THE best stuff!