Paul O’neill, the Bush Administration’s former Treasury Secretary has indicated that

Bush began planning the war in Iraq prior to 9/11. O’neill made the allegations in

a book he contributed to called The Price of Loyalty, and on CBS 60 Minutes, January

11, 2004.

O’neill told Leslie Stahl on CBS that: "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go…. For me, the notion of preemption -- that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do -- is a really huge leap."

The planning for the invasion of Iraq allegedly began as early as 10 days after Bush took

office, after being appointed by the Supreme Court. Ron Suskind, the Wall Street Journal

Reporter, who wrote the expose with Paul O’neill said: “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime…. Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”

The invasion of Iraq was previously planned at a think tank called Project For the New American Century by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Jeb Bush. The four neocons collaborated on a document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, which came out in September of 2000. According to the report: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”.

In a letter to President Clinton, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Armitage wrote that:

“We urge you to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power…. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.”

Karl Rove, the White House advisor who has allegedly been linked to the outing of

a CIA Agent, was also one of the major proponents of the invasion of Iraq for political

reasons. Rove believed the war in Iraq would tend to distract Americans from the

collapse of the economy, and the worsening unemployment that occurred during the

first three years of the Bush Administration.

In their book Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, James

Moore, and Wayne Slater noted that Rove contributed to a prewar political plan. According to Moore, and Slater: “The terrorist attacks of September 11 had created a new environment for policies that were once considered radical.”

Moore, and Slater observed that: “The president had also laid his predicate for acting

against Iraq. Suspcicions were now enough, even if intelligence efforts were unable to

to substantiate allegations against Saddam. The ensuing debate over acting preemptively

against Iraq, the timing of the public discourse and the moments of great decision, all show the trademarks of a disciplined campaign run by Karl Rove.”

The invasion of Iraq was planned well prior to September 11th, and the al Qaeda attack in

New York was utilized by Karl Rove as a public relations strategy to justify a questionable war that was planned without regard to the nonexistence of the WMD, or national security, by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. Rove’s strategy was to distract from the failure of Bush’s economic agenda by encouraging Bush to fire Paul O’neill, and then to distract the American people from the collapse of Bush’s domestic agenda by invading Iraq.