Title: Gen. Hugh Shelton: Bush Officials Pushed For Iraq War 'Almost To The Point Of Insubordination' Source:
HuffintonPost URL Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/ ... on-iraq-war-bush_n_773038.html Published:Oct 24, 2010 Author:HuffintonPost Post Date:2010-10-24 23:40:59 by Brian S Keywords:None Views:19147 Comments:35
Former Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton says that, during the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and other Pentagon officials pushed to go to war with Iraq "almost to the point of insubordination."
"There was a very strong push in those days for us to go into Iraq, and there was absolutely no intelligence, zero, that pointed toward the Iraqis.," he told Christiane Amanpour on ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday. "It was all Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden. And yet there was an element there that was -- that was pushing to go into Iraq at the same time."
George Bush was focused on Afghanistan and initially resisted the pressure to invade Iraq, Shelton says. But he was eventually convinced.
"Afghanistan, remember, was going very, very well," Shelton said. "The drumbeat back here in Washington was still pushing, coming out of the Pentagon, let's go to Iraq, let's get -- take him out. And he finally said, let's go."
Former Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton says that, during the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and other Pentagon officials pushed to go to war with Iraq "almost to the point of insubordination."
The Project for a New American Century (Kristol, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Bill Bennett etc) starting agitating to go to war with Iraq in 1996. They tried to get both Clinton and Netanyahu to do it.
In 2000, they attached themselves to the Bush campaign. Bush's first Treasury Secretary (Paul O’Neill) said that going to war with Iraq was "topic A" at Bush's cabinet meetings from day one.
The Bush administration used 9/11 an as excuse to invade Iraq. The administration initially claimed that Saddam was in cahoots with al Queda. Then they claimed that Iraq had nuclear weapons that could soon be given to al Queda to be used against the U.S.
Dick Armey has said that Cheney lied to him and other Congressional leaders about Iraq.
"Did Dick Cheney ... purposely tell me things he knew to be untrue?" Armey said. "I seriously feel that may be the case...Had I known or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed [the war] resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it from happening."
The neo-cons have caused great harm to America. They need to be ejected from their leading positions in the conservative movement and GOP.
Bill Clinton: 'My biggest worry was our troops would be HIT WITH WMD'S AS THEY APPROACHED BAGHDAD.
Cheney told Armey that Iraq had nuclear WMD with miniature delivery vehicles. He also told him that Saddam was in cahoots with al Queda. NONE OF IT WAS TRUE.
According to Dick Armey, Cheney told him that: Iraq's "ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear," had been "substantially refined since the first Gulf War," and would soon result in "packages that could be moved even by ground personnel....We now know they have the ability to develop these weapons in a very portable fashion, and they have a delivery system in their relationship with organizations such as Al Qaeda."
We wasted more than $700 billion and over 4,000 American lives because of a LIE.
According to Dick Armey, Cheney told him that: Iraq's "ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear," had been "substantially refined since the first Gulf War," and would soon result in "packages that could be moved even by ground personnel....We now know they have the ability to develop these weapons in a very portable fashion, and they have a delivery system in their relationship with organizations such as Al Qaeda."
We wasted more than $700 billion and over 4,000 American lives because of a LIE.
Who can forget Rumsfeld's claim that we knew where the stockpiles of weapons were being kept?
The simple fact of the matter is that inspectors had unfettered access to Iraq's arms sites prior to being pulled out. You would have to be a complete moron to believe that Bush/Cheney weren't going to invade Iraq no matter what.
