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In reply to the discussion: MSNBC: "A hoax. That's what it was.": New evidence that Bush scammed the nation into war. [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)By Dave Moniz and Peronet Despeignes, USA TODAY
CRAWFORD, Texas Paul O'Neill, President Bush's Treasury secretary in the first two years of his presidency, says the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq long before the Sept. 11 attacks and used questionable intelligence to justify the war.
In wide-ranging interviews with the CBS program 60 Minutes and Time magazine, O'Neill said Bush and a number of top advisers began planning to get rid of Saddam Hussein soon after the 2000 election. As early as January 2001, they began looking for ways to justify an invasion, O'Neill said.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein is a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told 60 Minutes. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime."
In the interviews, O'Neill was critical of Bush's leadership skills. He said Bush is too secretive and has saddled the economy with crippling long-term debt.
Bush fired O'Neill in December 2002 after clashing with the Treasury secretary over economic issues, including Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts. O'Neill is the principal source for a new book about the Bush administration, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.
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http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-11-oneill-iraq_x.htm