Bush on Iraq/wmd warpath LONG before 9/11. (Feb 2000)

Bush made the right call on Iraq.

At least Bush kep this word. We did the right thing by invading Iraq. I will never change my opinion on that.

Explain to us again why we needed to invade Iraq?

This is silly tripe. For Bush to say that, if Saddam is still developing WMD (in violation of his agreements with the U.N.), "I'll deal with it in a way that he won't like", is exactly what every other presidential candidate would have been saying in Feb 2008, plus Pres. Clinton.

Why don't you explain to us, BI30, what you think Bush *should* have said in regard to that issue, if he wasn't, as you claim, intent on war.

And, btw, I am the LAST PERSON ON EARTH who wants to defend Bush!

Note a few things:

Listen to the video again. Jim Leher never mentions WMD's. Bush brings it up, not him. Leher even tries to get Bush back on subject of "dictators still in power" and Bush AGAIN brings up WMD's, and using their possible existence as an excuse to invade Iraq militarily. Bush ignores the subject of Milosevich and Bosnia entirely.

The 2 principal foreign policy issues in 2000 with regard to possible US military action were Milosovic's behavior with non-Serbs in Bosnia & Kosovo, & Saddam's with his defiance of UN WND inspections. Given the "tough guy" stance the Bush campaign used to win popularity, there's nothing surprising about his bias toward focusing on Iraq. The issue of Saddam was "sexier" than Bosnia or Kosovo, given that we'd fought & won a war against him 9 years prior.

That said, I will say that I think it's quite likely that Bush had a personal obsession about Iraq. Defeating Saddam was the golden opportunity for the prodigal son to finally prove that he was cleverer & bolder than his highly-accomplished father. In retrospect, it all seems very Shakespearean, except that 5000 REAL American lives were lost, and countless Iraqi ones.

Despite all that, what you present is very weak evidence for the conclusion that you make.

You must remember, before 9/11, no one was advocating the "invasion of Iraq" except the neocons. Bush stated AFTER 9/11 that invading Iraq was justified on the grounds "9/11 changed everything", but clearly he was already threatening the invasion of Iraq a mere 40 days after declaring his candidacy for President.

On it's own, this video may not reveal much, but remember how they savaged his former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill for claiming Bush "wanted to invade Iraq from Day One" (see vid.)

You don't have to convince me that Bush was itching for an excuse to invade Iraq. Yes, I remember Paul O'Neill's words; also that Bush (or was it Cheney?) demanded evidence of Saddam's involvement in 9/11 on virtually the day after.

But "I'll deal with it in a way that he won't like" is exactly the kind of vague threat our leaders always make when they want to sound tough, but don't want to commit themselves to anything concrete and drastic that can end up haunting them later.

I'll tell u one thing I do suspect, though: It seemed that the new Bush admin in 2001 was searching for some kind of foreign policy confrontation, perhaps to establish its neocon credentials, or to differentiate itself from the Clinton WH. Remember the incident with the Chinese plane smacking into our spy plane & then plunging into the ocean? It seemed we might be headed for a new era of frosty relations with the Chinese. And then 9/11 hit, & Bush/Cheney suddenly had better "fish to fry".