When W Wanted War

When did the president cook up his plan to unleash America's fury on Iraq? Hard to say for sure, but a Washington Post article puts the date at September 17, 2001, just six days after the World Trade Center attacks. In a document outlining war plans in Afghanistan, measures for taking out Saddam Hussein were discussed, echoing sentiments that White House insiders like Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay M. Khalilzad have been clamoring for for years. But, given the obvious influence of George Herbert Walker Bush on his son, you can bet it goes back further than that.

GW's inaugural speech, delivered before 9/11, used the same kind of rhetoric as his post-9/11 addresses. He foreshadows the "Axis of Evil" namecalling by referring to "the enemies of liberty" and offers a posture that, in retrospective, is more prophetic than macho: "We will build our defences beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge. We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors."

But tough ol' gal of the Washington press corps Helen Thomas nailed it when she asked press secretary Ari Fleischer why the president wants to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis. Fleischer hemmed and hawed, weaseling out of the question, before Thomas asked: "Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?" The press secretary's response: "I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then."

Hmmm, so it's not about weapons of mass destruction or the supposed ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. As Thomas put it: "Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?"