Once More, For Liberals Opinion Is Fact

Bush Wanted War

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, March 30, 2006; 12:00 AM

It is my firm belief that if, say, a few dozen people simultaneously did an Internet search for the words "Bush lied," computers all over the country would crash and the energy grid would buckle, producing a rolling blackout that would begin somewhere around Terre Haute, Ind., and end in Barnstable, Mass. So common is the statement "Bush lied" that it seems sometimes that I am the only blue-state person who does not think it is true. Then, last week, the indomitable Helen Thomas changed all that with a single question. She asked George Bush why he wanted "to go to war" from the moment he "stepped into the White House," and the president said, "You know, I didn't want war." With that, the last blue-state skeptic folded.

I would not go so far as to say that Bush wanted war from Day One in the White House, but there was plenty of evidence he had Saddam on his mind and in his sights from the very moment he got the news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We have it from Richard Clarke, formerly the White House's chief anti-terrorism official, that within a day of the attacks Bush was inquiring if Saddam might have had a hand in them. When told no -- "But, Mr. President, al-Qaeda did this," Clarke told him -- it became instantly clear that this was not the answer Bush wanted. "'Look into Iraq, Saddam,' the president said testily," Clarke writes in his book, "Against All Enemies."

Similarly, Bob Woodward says in his book, "Plan of Attack," that not only was Bush fixated on Iraq, but by Thanksgiving of 2001, he already had told Don Rumsfeld to prepare a plan for the invasion of that country. "Let's get started on this," the president said, cautioning the defense secretary not to tell anyone. Rumsfeld said that eventually he would have to take CIA Director George Tenet into his confidence. "'Fine."' Woodward quotes Bush as saying -- "but not now."

As for myself, I was told by a European intelligence official that after flying to Washington right after the 9/11 attacks, he was stunned to discover that talk had already turned to Iraq. This was particularly true at the Pentagon, where Paul Wolfowitz was obsessed with Iraq, and that seems to have been true of the White House as well. And now we know from various British accounts that close aides to Prime Minister Tony Blair recognized early on that Bush was going to go to war -- and that Blair, his poodle at obedient heel, would follow along. More recently we learned -- again from British sources -- that even though Bush went back to the United Nations for yet another resolution condemning Iraq, he was determined to make war almost no matter what.

Sorry Richard, I don't believe you. As a constant and unrelenting critic of the White House and President Bush, excuse me if I doubt your claim that you were the only dissenting voice among your Leftist peers. It just doesn't have the ring of truth. You lack credibility.

You have no proof and very little evidence, other that anecdotal (Clarke is hardly an unbiased unimpeachable source, nor are aides to the Prime Minister that would call Blair a "poodle at obedient heel." If those are your words, it is even worse for your case.) to support your claim. For you, as is true for most Liberals, what you want to be true becomes truth. As Dennis Miller puts it you believe your guesswork to be fact.

The fact remains, that President Bush has a great deal more credibility than do those on the Left who so often mistake opinion for fact. Further as a member of the MSM your credibility suffers even further questioning.

Full Story: Only A Liberal Would Be Willing To Believe Bush Wanted War

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