4/19/2004
Scary Plan of Attack

How times have changed for the Bush administration. It didn't take President Bush long to exhaust the global supply of goodwill toward America after 9/11 - his brash, short-sighted foreign policy has left that well bone dry. It took slightly longer for the president to burn through his administration's supply of favorable press coverage in the post-9/11 era, but now that appears to have completely disappeared as well. In an interview on "60 Minutes" last night to promote his new book "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward painted a terrifying portrait of a politically-driven Bush White House that couldn't be bothered with second guessing. Doesn't that sound familiar.

Here's a brief rundown of what he learned while covering the administration's push for war.


Just 72 days after 9/11, President Bush began pressing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the issue of Iraq. In turn, Rumsfeld gave Gen. Tommy Franks a blank check to develop war plans. In July 2002, President Bush approved $700 million for these tasks without Congress' knowledge . Where did the money come from? Appropriations for the Afghan War.

Franks was working on the Iraq invasion a year before the war. But when he was publicly asked about the situation in May 2002, he responded, "That's a great question and one for which I don't have an answer, because my boss has not yet asked me to put together a plan to do that [invade Iraq]."

In December 2002, CIA deputy John McLaughlin appeared in the Oval Office to brief President Bush about Iraq's WMD capabilities. McLaughlin's well-planned presentation flopped - the president responded by saying, "Nice try, but that isn't gonna sell Joe Public." At that point, CIA Director George Tenet reassured everyone in the room that it was a "slam-dunk" case.

President Bush decided to go to war in January 2003. While at his Texas ranch, he told National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, "We're gonna have to go. It's war."

Secretary of State Colin Powell was the last to be informed of the war plans. The president, vice president, Rice, and Rumsfeld all knew before him. Even Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar knew about the upcoming war before the secretary of state. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gen. Brett Myers all met with Bandar in order to obtain Saudi cooperation for an Iraqi invasion. During the meeting, Cheney assured Bandar that once the attack started, Saddam Hussein would be "toast." Powell wasn't notified of the war plans by President Bush until two days later.

During a meeting with President Bush, Prince Bandar engaged in a bit of political calculus over oil prices. Here's what he told the president: "They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

Woodward says that Bush never consulted with his father over the decision to invade Iraq. Even more amazing, "The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation," Woodward says.

The Bush administration was extremely negligent in its handling of plans for postwar Iraq. "On the real issue of security and possible violence, they did not see it coming," says Woodward.


In a familiar move, the Bush administration sent out its political henchman du jour - this time played by Condoleezza Rice - to attack the attackers on the Sunday news shows. What resulted was a surreal sight - Condoleezza Rice lecturing the American public about Bob Woodward's lack of credibility.

Rice initially attempted to parse phrases and claim that President Bush did not decide to go to war with Iraq in January 2002. Here's how she characterized the conversation on "Face the Nation":


"That was not a decision to go to war. The decision to go to war is in March. The president is saying in that conversation, 'I think the chances are that this is not going to work out any other way. We're going to have to go to war."'


Got that? The Bush administration has now officially resorted to splitting already-split hairs. It's probably time for them to start investing in microscopes if this trend continues.

Rice was also grilled about the $700 million that was taken from the Afghanistan fund and used for war preparations in Iraq. (Remember, the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq also resulted in troops that were on the hunt for bin Laden to be pulled off the trail and relocated to Iraq.) Rice attempted to duck the question by stating that we used everything in Afghanistan that we needed, but host Bob Schieffer quickly noted, "But, Dr. Rice, you cannot take money that Congress has appropriated for one purpose and spend it on something else. That's against the law."

Rice later - incredibly - attempted once more to convince the nation that Saddam did in fact have all the WMD that the Bush administration promised. This exchange on "Face the Nation" is just amazing:


RICE: Everyone believed at that time including intelligence agencies around the world, the United Nations, anybody who knew Saddam Hussein's history, how he'd hidden weapons before, how he'd used them before that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, an active program to continue to improve them.

KAREN TUMULTY: But they were wrong.

RICE: Well, no. If you look at what has been found since by David Kay and by Charlie Deulfer, what is clear is that the - the stockpiles what were unaccounted for...have not been found and no one knows precisely what came of them.


Don't you see? Weapons inspectors David Kay and Charlie Duelfer didn't find any of the unaccounted for WMD! What more proof could you possibly need that they actually exist?

It is astounding that the Bush administration would have the gall to continue to promote this particular issue as if it played right into their strengths. But the ability to latch onto a lie and continue to promote it as if it had any basis in real fact is one thing that has separated this administration from others.

Of course, something else that's separated the Bush administration from others is their willingness to inject politics into every running debate. During her interview on "Fox News Sunday," Rice commented that she worried that "the terrorists might have learned...the wrong lesson from Spain." She was referring to Spain's recent elections where Jose Maria Aznar - an ardent Bush supporter - was voted out from his post. It is pretty obvious what Rice considers "the wrong lesson" to be.

Read more here and here .

HEADLINE OF THE DAY:

"NORAD had drills of jets as weapons "-USA Today

That might make this perjury then, no?


"I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons." - Condoleezza Rice in front of the 9/11 commission



NORAD had drills of jets as weapons
By Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.

NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred. It said the scenarios outlined were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises.

"Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft," the statement said. "These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination and operational security and communications security procedures."

A White House spokesman said Sunday that the Bush administration was not aware of the NORAD exercises. But the exercises using real aircraft show that at least one part of the government thought the possibility of such attacks, though unlikely, merited scrutiny.

On April 8, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks heard testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that the White House didn't anticipate hijacked planes being used as weapons.

On April 12, a watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, released a copy of an e-mail written by a former NORAD official referring to the proposed exercise targeting the Pentagon. The e-mail said the simulation was not held because the Pentagon considered it "too unrealistic."

President Bush said at a news conference Tuesday, "Nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."

The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country.

Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries.

But there were exceptions in the early drills, including one operation, planned in July 2001 and conducted later, that involved planes from airports in Utah and Washington state that were "hijacked." Those planes were escorted by U.S. and Canadian aircraft to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska.

NORAD officials have acknowledged that "scriptwriters" for the drills included the idea of hijacked aircraft being used as weapons.

"Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the scriptwriters to invoke creativity and broaden the required response," Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, a NORAD official, told the 9/11 commission. No exercise matched the specific events of Sept. 11, NORAD said.

"We have planned and executed numerous scenarios over the years to include aircraft originating from foreign airports penetrating our sovereign airspace," Gen. Ralph Eberhart, NORAD commander, told USA TODAY. "Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised."

NORAD, a U.S.-Canadian command, was created in 1958 to guard against Soviet bombers.

Until Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD conducted four major exercises a year. Most included a hijack scenario, but not all of those involved planes as weapons. Since the attacks, NORAD has conducted more than 100 exercises, all with mock hijackings.

NORAD fighters based in Florida have intercepted two hijacked smaller aircraft since the Sept. 11 attacks. Both originated in Cuba and were escorted to Key West in spring 2003, NORAD said.




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