The Iraq war was a foregone conclusion; 9/11 cynically used by Bush Administration for its own ends

Blogger Thad Anderson has received, via a Freedom of Information Act request, Department of Defense staffer Stephen Cambone's notes from the latter's meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The notes show that by 2:40 PM on that afternoon, Rumsfeld was already thinking of ways the attacks could be used to justify an invasion of Iraq:

The released notes document Donald Rumsfeld's 2:40 PM instructions to General Myers to find the "[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]" (as discussed on p. 334-335 of the 9/11 Commission Report and in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack).

In addition, the documents confirm the contents of CBS News' Sept. 4, 2002 report "Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted Rumsfeld's notes as stating: "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not." These lines were not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report or Woodward's Plan of Attack, and to my knowledge, have not been independently confirmed by any other source. After the Rathergate fiasco, I wondered if CBS had been fooled into publishing a story that, from a publicity perspective, seemed too good to be true.

Finally, these documents unveil a previously undisclosed part of the 2:40 PM discussion. Several lines below the "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at same time" line, Cambone's notes from the conversation read: "Hard to get a good case."

Anderson's full post is here. Links to a Torrent zip file containing the entire set, or individual notes in PDF format, can be found here as well, as well as a link to the entire set at Flickr.

Some chilling statements in these notes for a weird sort of warmongering pseudo-haiku, for those without the patience to look through the handwriting:

2:40
Resume Statement:

Best info fast
judge whether good enough
Hit S.H@ same time -
Not just UBL

Tasks Jim Haynes to talk w/ PW
for additional support v/v Usis &
connection w/ UBL

[REDACTED (N.R. stands for Not Relevant)]

- Hard to get a good case

- Need to move swiftly -

Near term target needs -
- go massive - sweep it all up
- Things related & not

[ARROW]
Need to do so
to get anything
useful"

9:53 PM EST:

VP Report:

1) CIA intercept
[redacted]

2) AA77 - 3 indiv have been followed
since Millennium & Cole
1 guy is assoc of Cole bomber
3 entered US in early July (2 of 3 pulled aside and interrogated?)

3) No M.O.

Julian Borger of The Guardian (UK) is also covering this story, and notes:

Mr Wolfowitz, now the head of the World Bank, advocated regime change in Iraq before 2001. But, according to an account of the days after September 11 in Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack, a decision was taken to put off consideration of an attack on Iraq until after the Taliban had been toppled in Afghanistan.

But these notes confirm that Baghdad was in the Pentagon's sights almost as soon as the hijackers struck.

More from Anderson here.

So for anyone who bought the line about war as a last resort, here is your proof, right from the U.S. government, that the Iraq war was, in fact, not a last resort, but the first thing that came to the minds of this Administration, and a cynically conceived way to capitalize on the 9/11 attacks.

With Iraq on the verge of Civil War, the impact of this kind of horrific cynicism grows clearer every day.

Every day I grow more astounded that Americans who were so worked up in a lather about a blowjob seem to think that this is all perfectly OK. It shows me that there is a tipping point at which a U.S. Administration can be SO venal, SO corrupt, and so, yes, EVIL, that it extends beyond most Americans' willingness to believe it possible -- and so they deny the evil that exists in our own nation's capital.

But it's there, and wishing it away won't change a thing.