Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war

[Postman]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1185407,00.html

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.
According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.


Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11.

[HawkerHurricane]

1. Before, during and after 9/11

Bush was obsessed with Iraq.

Had to take Iraq, so to have oil under our (indirect) control, to have permanent bases in the area (so we could pull out of Saudi Arabia) AND (very important) have land access to Syria, so we could knock them out and eliminate that threat to Isreal. With Egypt under our thumb, Jordan increasingly westernized, Lebanon fragmented and Syria occupied, the Palastinian's would have no outside support and could be bullied at will.

Also, bases in Iraq could be used to threaten Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf States: "play ball or else!"

[Postman]

2. A strategy that makes a suitcase nuke incident MORE likely

you can only piss on people for soo long before they strike back with a vengence.

The "blowback" could be devastating and unmeasured.

The news reported the brutality in which those in Fallujah mutilated the bodies of those "civilian contractors" (i.e., mercanaries)

While brutal, an indicator of the pent up frustration of a civilian populace fed up with an occupation that is not promising what it stated at the outset.

I fear for this countries future safety with the policies that this Bush administration is carrying out.

[ulTRAX]

3. so you're saying.....

That the US would rather declare war on, and occupy, 2 Arab nations rather than put a choke chain on the nut-case Right in Israel?