Bush sought way to invade iraq (Jan. 11, 2004 )

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Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:43:20 -0800 (PST)

Bush sought way to invade iraq ( Jan. 11, 2004 )

 

 

 

 

" From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam

Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go, " says O'Neill,

who adds that going after Saddam was topic " A " 10 days after the

inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

 

 

Bush Sought `Way' To Invade Iraq?

Jan. 11, 2004

 

 

 

(CBS) A year ago, Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George

Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the

president's policy on tax cuts.

 

Now, O'Neill - who is known for speaking his mind - talks for

the first time about his two years inside the Bush administration.

His story is the centerpiece of a new book being published this week

about the way the Bush White House is run.

 

Entitled " The Price of Loyalty, " the book by a former Wall

Street Journal reporter draws on interviews with high-level

officials who gave the author their personal accounts of meetings

with the president, their notes and documents. [simon and Schuster,

the book's publisher, and CBSNews.com, are both units of Viacom.]

 

But the main source of the book was Paul O'Neill. Correspondent

Lesley Stahl reports.

Paul O'Neill says he is going public because he thinks the Bush

Administration has been too secretive about how decisions have been

made.

 

Will this be seen as a " kiss-and-tell " book?

 

" I've come to believe that people will say damn near anything,

so I'm sure somebody will say all of that and more, " says O'Neill,

who was George Bush's top economic policy official.

 

In the book, O'Neill says that the president did not make

decisions in a methodical way: there was no free-flow of ideas or

open debate.

 

At cabinet meetings, he says the president was " like a blind man

in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection, "

forcing top officials to act " on little more than hunches about what

the president might think. "

 

This is what O'Neill says happened at his first hour-long, one-

on-one meeting with Mr. Bush: " I went in with a long list of things

to talk about, and I thought to engage on and as the book says, I

was surprised that it turned out me talking, and the president just

listening … As I recall, it was mostly a monologue. "

 

He also says that President Bush was disengaged, at least on

domestic issues, and that disturbed him. And he says that wasn't his

experience when he worked as a top official under Presidents Nixon

and Ford, or the way he ran things when he was chairman of Alcoa.

 

O'Neill readily agreed to tell his story to the book's author

Ron Suskind – and he adds that he's taking no money for his part in

the book.

 

Suskind says he interviewed hundreds of people for the book –

including several cabinet members.

 

O'Neill is the only one who spoke on the record, but Suskind

says that someone high up in the administration – Donald Rumsfeld -

warned O'Neill not to do this book.

 

Was it a warning, or a threat?

 

" I don't think so. I think it was the White House concerned, "

says Suskind. " Understandably, because O'Neill has spent

extraordinary amounts of time with the president. They said, `This

could really be the one moment where things are revealed.' "

Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000

internal documents.

 

" Everything's there: Memoranda to the President,

handwritten " thank you " notes, 100-page documents. Stuff that's

sensitive, " says Suskind, adding that in some cases, it included

transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council

meetings. " You don't get higher than that. "

 

And what happened at President Bush's very first National

Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling

revelations.

 

" From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam

Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go, " says O'Neill,

who adds that going after Saddam was topic " A " 10 days after the

inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

 

" From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about

what we can do to change this regime, " says Suskind. " Day one, these

things were laid and sealed. "

 

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the

National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at

the meeting that questions such as " Why Saddam? " and " Why now? " were

never asked.

 

" 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. " 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. "

 

And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds

that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security

Council meeting two days later.

 

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. " There are

memos. One of them marked, secret, says, `Plan for post-Saddam

Iraq,' " adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of

Iraq in January and February of 2001.

Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials

at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned

peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up

Iraq's oil wealth.

 

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and

entitled " Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts, " which

includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

 

" It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-

40 countries. And which ones have what intentions, " says

Suskind. " On oil in Iraq. "

 

During the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-

Gore Administration for being too interventionist: " If we don't stop

extending our troops all around the world in nation-building

missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the

road. And I'm going to prevent that. "

 

" The thing that's most surprising, I think, is how emphatically,

from the very first, the administration had said `X' during the

campaign, but from the first day was often doing `Y,' " says

Suskind. " Not just saying `Y,' but actively moving toward the

opposite of what they had said during the election. "

 

The president had promised to cut taxes, and he did. Within six

months of taking office, he pushed a trillion dollars worth of tax

cuts through Congress.

But O'Neill thought it should have been the end. After 9/11 and

the war in Afghanistan, the budget deficit was growing. So at a

meeting with the vice president after the

mid-term elections in 2002, Suskind writes that O'Neill argued

against a second round of tax cuts.

 

" Cheney, at this moment, shows his hand, " says Suskind. " He

says, `You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We

won the mid-term elections, this is our due.' … O'Neill is

speechless. "

 

" It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how

to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our

society, " says O'Neill. " And I thought the weight of working on

Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important

than a tax reduction. "

 

Did he think it was irresponsible? " Well, it's for sure not what

I would have done, " says O'Neill.

 

The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney

of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part

of " a praetorian guard that encircled the president " to block out

contrary views. " This is the way Dick likes it, " says O'Neill.

 

Meanwhile, the White House was losing patience with O'Neill. He

was becoming known for a series of off-the-cuff remarks his critics

called gaffes. One of them sent the dollar into a nosedive and

required major damage control.

 

Twice during stock market meltdowns, O'Neill was not available

to the president: He was out of the country - one time on a trip to

Africa with the Irish rock star Bono.

 

" Africa made an enormous splash. It was like a road show, " says

Suskind. " He comes back and the president says to him at a

meeting, `You know, you're getting quite a cult following.' And it

clearly was not a joke. And it was not said in jest. "

 

Suskind writes that the relationship grew tenser and that the

president even took a jab at O'Neill in public, at an economic forum

in Texas.

 

The two men were never close. And O'Neill was not amused when

Mr. Bush began calling him " The Big O. " He thought the president's

habit of giving people nicknames was a form of bullying. Everything

came to a head for O'Neill at a November 2002 meeting at the White

House of the economic team.

 

" It's a huge meeting. You got Dick Cheney from the, you know,

secure location on the video. The President is there, " says Suskind,

who was given a nearly verbatim transcript by someone who attended

the meeting.

 

He says everyone expected Mr. Bush to rubber stamp the plan

under discussion: a big new tax cut. But, according to Suskind, the

president was perhaps having second thoughts about cutting taxes

again, and was uncharacteristically engaged.

 

" He asks, `Haven't we already given money to rich people? This

second tax cut's gonna do it again,' " says Suskind.

 

" He says, `Didn't we already, why are we doing it again?' Now,

his advisers, they say, `Well Mr. President, the upper class,

they're the entrepreneurs. That's the standard response.' And the

president kind of goes, `OK.' That's their response. And then, he

comes back to it again. `Well, shouldn't we be giving money to the

middle, won't people be able to say, `You did it once, and then you

did it twice, and what was it good for?' "

 

But according to the transcript, White House political advisor

Karl Rove jumped in.

 

" Karl Rove is saying to the president, a kind of mantra. `Stick

to principle. Stick to principle.' He says it over and over again, "

says Suskind. " Don't waver. "

 

In the end, the president didn't. And nine days after that

meeting in which O'Neill made it clear he could not publicly support

another tax cut, the vice president called and asked him to resign.

 

With the deficit now climbing towards $400 billion, O'Neill

maintains he was in the right.

 

But look at the economy today.

 

" Yes, well, in the last quarter the growth rate was 8.2 percent.

It was terrific, " says O'Neill. " I think the tax cut made a

difference. But without the tax cut, we would have had 6 percent

real growth, and the prospect of dealing with transformation of

Social Security and fundamentally fixing the tax system. And to me,

those were compelling competitors for, against more tax cuts. "

 

While in the book O'Neill comes off as constantly appalled at

Mr. Bush, he was surprised when Stahl told him she found his

portrait of the president unflattering.

 

" Hmmm, you really think so, " asks O'Neill, who says he isn't

joking. " Well, I'll be darned. "

 

" You're giving me the impression that you're just going to be

stunned if they attack you for this book, " says Stahl to

O'Neill. " And they're going to say, I predict, you know, it's sour

grapes. He's getting back because he was fired. "

" I will be really disappointed if they react that way because I

think they'll be hard put to, " says O'Neill.

 

Is he prepared for it?

 

" Well, I don't think I need to be because I can't imagine that

I'm going to be attacked for telling the truth, " says O'Neill. " Why

would I be attacked for telling the truth? "

 

White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked about the book

on Friday and said " The president is someone that leads and acts

decisively on our biggest priorities and that is exactly what he'll

continue to do. "

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/printable592330.s

html

 

 

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!