Blogger’s FOIA request reveals new insight into Bush Administration’s early fixation on Iraq.

On February 10th, a blogger at outragedmoderates.org received the notes from meetings held by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the hours after the attacks on 9/11. The note, penned by DoD staffer Steven Cambone and obtained thru a Freedom of Information request, verifies Bob Woodward’s assertions in his book, “Plan of Attack”. Contrary to Bush administration claims that they were not pre-disposed with Iraq before 9/11, these newly obtained documents prove that the attacks of 9/11 were used as a pre-text to invade Iraq.

These notes, referred to, but not quoted in the 9/11 Commission Report are in direct conflict with the commission’s assertions that Wolfowitz alone, and not Rumsfeld or Bush, was the one pre-occupied with using 9/11 as a reason to invade Iraq in the hours and days following the attacks. (Commission Report pgs. 334-336)

As it was sparsely reported in the media before and after the invasion of Iraq, and in Woodward “Plan of Attack”, published in April of 2004, the plans for Iraq were well under way well before the attacks of 9/11. Varying accounts are available as to why the Neo-Cons and the Bush administration were fixated on invading Iraq, and I will not pretend to know the particulars of exactly why this pre-disposition existed in the first place, but these documents confirm that more members of the Bush administration had “Iraq on the brain” than they would like to admit.

Included in the newly released documents are the hand written notes containing Rumsfeld’s orders to General Myers (CJCS) previously reported by CBS News and Woodward telling him to find the "[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]", "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

What was not previously known, and is revealed in these documents is that they knew it would be a tough sell to link Iraq to the attacks. The previously unknown piece of the notes in question, "Hard to get a good case.", belong between the two previously known pieces. Unfortunately, there is a redacted section included in this section, along with a request to task DoD General Councel William (Jim) Haynes to contact Paul Wolfowitz for support.

When read in order, this document flies in the face of the public statements offered by members of the Bush Administration and the findings of the 9/11 Commission. Though the redaction inhibits an immutably precise understanding of the context, this new information provides more than enough context to prove that the Bush administration wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as a pre-text for an intervention in Iraq.

My limited interpritation of the text in question:


2:40
[un-legable] statement:
[b]est info fast
judge whether good enough
hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time
not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]
Task Jim Haynes to talk w/ PW [Paul Wolfowitz]
for additional support u/u Us:s[ don’t know significance of u/u Us:s]
connection w/ UBL [Usama Bin Laden]

[3 lines redacted]

Hard to get a good case.
Need to move swiftly-
Near term t[ar]get needs-
go massive - Sweep it all up
Things related and not.

Need to do [un-legable]
To get a[n]y t[hing]
Useful
[end text]


It is also intresting to note that the notes from 9:53 titled “VP Report” is highly redacted. This may be nothing of great consequence, but is quite curious none the less.

I would encourage you not to just take my word for it. Have a look at the documents and judge for yourself. The PDF’s are avaliable at outragedmoderates.org, the blogger that made possiable this new insight into the Bush administrations deceptive march to war.