Posted on 01/10/2004 6:44:24 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq including the use of American troops within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001, not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported. That is what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Jan. 11 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," he tells Stahl. "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," says O'Neill. O'Neill, fired by the White House for his disagreement on tax cuts, is the main source for an upcoming book, "The Price of Loyalty," authored by Ron Suskind. Suskind says O'Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall, including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil. "There are memos," Suskind tells Stahl, "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'" A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from...30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq," Suskind says. In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. "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 in the book. Suskind also writes about a White House meeting in which he says the president seems to be wavering about going forward with his second round of tax cuts. "Haven't we already given money to rich people," Suskind says the president uttered, according to a nearly verbatim transcript of an Economic Team meeting he says he obtained from someone at the meeting, "Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle?" O'Neill, who was asked to resign because of his opposition to the tax cut, says he doesn't think his tell-all account in this book will be attacked by his former employers as sour grapes. "I will be really disappointed if [the White House] reacts that way," he tells Stahl. "I can't imagine that I am going to be attacked for telling the truth." Developing...
Hogwash.
However, the picture looks very much like the one I remember on First Salute's page.
You are.
Yep, either Bush was doing nothing against terror before 911 or he was doing something about it, in any case his detractors will seek to nail him.
?
No, but you will be proven to be a duplicitous liar, just like Clinton. Enjoy your well-deserved historical ignonimity and oblivion.
Sorry .. this Coversation is over.
Go figure.
You care more about the rights of American citizen terrorists than about the rights of civilians, it seems.
No. I care more about the Constitution and the rights of American citizens than about any president's quest for more power over the people. Remember that we have only the word of John Ashcroft, that either of those men are terrorists. The reason that the Constitution delegated powers among three different branches of government, was to prevent just this eventuality. Separation of powers is there to prevent any single branch of government from acting unilaterally, to take away our rights, requiring instead, the approval of at least one other branch (in this case, the Court). After all, if Ashcroft has the evidence that he claims to have, why is he so afraid to let a judge see the evidence and verify that he has just cause to hold these citizens incommunicado? In the beginning, I believed what the administration said about those men. But, the more the administration stonewalls, the more I have to believe that they must be lying. That's because there could be no other reason for stonewalling, as they have.
If the law was as clear cut as you would have us believe, there would be a lot of unemployed attorneys.
I'll address the second part of that statement first. We should have a lot of unemployed attorneys, were it not for attorneys writing recent laws in ever more complicated jargon, thus assuring themselves of future work.
As for your suggestion that the law in question is not clear cut, I give you the law in question:
Amendment V -
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; ... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ...Amendment VI -
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
That's so clear cut that I learned its meaning when I was in elementary school. I hope that you aren't suggesting that you don't understand that statement. It all goes back to the original intent, in that the branch of government that enforces the law must pass their evidence before the branch that adjudicates the law, before they can punish or otherwise limit the rights of a citizen and that they must do this promptly. Somehow, I don't think that they would have considered over a year, "prompt".
Also note that the portion concerning land or naval forces refers specifically to US military personnel (not ordinary citizens), who fall under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
The very fact that you are more apt to believe O'Neill rather than the president tell us everything we need to know about you.
One thing that it should tell you is that I base my trust in people upon their past pattern of behavior. O'Neill has not given us any glaring reasons to mistrust him. On the other hand, as I pointed out in my previous post, Dubya has a track record of repeatedly failing to honor an oath. You can believe Dubya if you want. But, his pattern of behavior tells me that he is not a person to be trusted. If he has so few scruples that he will not honor a sacred oath, then how can you expect him to care anything about the truth when he is not under oath? Both O'Neill and Dubya are politicians, so I suspect anything that either of them says. But, given the choice of only believing one, I'll have to take O'Neill, over Dubya.
Posted by cory to woofie On News/Activism 01/10/2004 8:41:12 AM PST #145 of 297 Sorry man but that doesn't float. For a specific small group, the energy task force, to request the docs meant that there was something in the works. You don't identify suitors for projects on a contingency plan. Also, since when are contingency plans created in regards to economic possibilities of a sanctioned nation? When we're going to invade them, that's when.
It turns out that Oneill and others said today that this was contingency stuff
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