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"?F--- Saddam,? Bush said. ?We?re taking him out.? March 2002
By Robert Parry
April 8, 2003
In the latest sign of a troubled American democracy, a large majority of U.S. citizens now say they wouldn?t mind if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq, though it was George W. Bush?s chief rationale for war. Americans also don?t seem to mind that Bush appears to have deceived them for months when he claimed he hadn?t made up his mind about invading Iraq.
As he marched the nation to war, Bush presented himself as a Christian man of peace who saw war only as a last resort. But in a remarkable though little noted disclosure, Time magazine reported that in March 2002 ? a full year before the invasion ? Bush outlined his real thinking to three U.S. senators, ?Fuck Saddam,? Bush said. ?We?re taking him out.?
" Bush offered his pithy judgment after sticking his head in the door of a White House meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators who had been discussing strategies for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations. The senators laughed uncomfortably at Bush?s remark, Time reported. [Time story posted March 23, 2003]
It now is clear that Bush never intended to avoid a war in Iraq, a conflict which has so far claimed the lives of at least 85 American soldiers and possibly thousands of Iraqis."
"The Bush administration?s deceit was so obvious that even Washington Post columnist David Broder spotted it. Broder, who has built a career ignoring unpleasant realities about Washington?s powerful, observed how Bush had choreographed the march to war.
?Looking back, the major landmarks of the past year appear to have been carefully designed to leave no alternative but war with Iraq ? or an unlikely capitulation and abdication by Hussein,? Broder wrote on the eve of the war. Noting Bush?s post-Sept. 11th doctrine of waging preemptive war against any nation that he deemed a potential threat, Broder said, ?It quickly became clear that Iraq had been chosen as the test case of the new doctrine.? [Washington Post, March 18, 2003]
"This new emphasis on military might to bring other countries into line -- occurring in tandem with the cheapening of the democratic debate inside the United States -- may have been described best by U.S. diplomat John Brady Kiesling, who resigned earlier this year rather than help give diplomatic cover to the war strategy.
"We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam," Kiesling wrote in a resignation letter on Feb. 27. "We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq."
"Bush apparently sees his mission in messianic terms, believing that he is the instrument of God as he strikes at Saddam Hussein and other U.S. adversaries. In a profile of Bush at war, USA Today cited Commerce Secretary Don Evans, one of Bush?s closest friends, describing Bush?s belief that he was called on by God to do what he?s doing.
Bush?s obsession with Hussein also was traced to a personal loathing for the dictator. Bush ?is convinced that the Iraqi leader is literally insane and would gladly give terrorists weapons to use to launch another attack on the United States,? the newspaper reported. In that conviction, however, Bush is at odds with CIA analysts who concluded last year that the secular Hussein would only share weapons with Islamic terrorists if the United States invaded Iraq.
While assessing Hussein as nuts, Bush has not proven to be a model of psychological stability either. As he readied himself for the speech announcing the start of the war, he was behaving more like a frat boy than a world leader undertaking a grave act that would end the lives of thousands. He pumped his fist and exclaimed about himself, ?feel good.?
"Bush's behavior seems to be tracking with the imperial style he unveiled last year to Bob Woodward in an interview for the book, Bush at War. "That's the interesting thing about being the president," Bush said. "Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
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