"The United States military, the Central Intelligence Agency and Iraqi exiles began a broad covert effort inside Iraq at least three months before the war to forge alliances with Iraqi military leaders and persuade commanders not to fight," reported Sunday's NY Times.
This news does not come as a surprise, especially since revelations about the premature bombings to "soften up" Iraqi defenses came to light, but it nonetheless blows another hole in the repeated claim by the Bush administration in the months preceding the assault that they were doing their best to avoid war. "No decision yet" is what Wolfie, Ari, Colin, Dick, and, yes, even George kept telling the press in mid to late 2002. They were, obviously, lying.
In reality, the decision was immediately made to use 9/11 to justify a war in Iraq. After the Afghan bloodletting, the plan was set into motion and the appeal to the UN in Fall 2002 was used to garner as much support as possible, since the administration had to give the military a few months for a troop buildup anyway.
All of the hemming and hawing over WMD capabilities is and was just a clever front to obscure these points.
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