wolfowitz II: zmag analysis

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, both of who spent a better part of the past decade advocating the use of military force against Iraq, put the issue to rest once and for all. Judging by recent interviews Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz gave to a handful of media outlets during the past week, the short answer is yes, the public was mislead into believing Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz admit that the war with Iraq was planned two days after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

On September13, 2001, during a meeting at Camp David with President Bush, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration, Wolfowitz said he discussed with President Bush the prospects of launching an attack against Iraq, for no apparent reason other than a “gut feeling” [pnac?] Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, and there was a debate “about what place if any Iraq should have in a counter terrorist strategy". "On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when,” Wolfowitz said during the May 9 interview, a transcript of which is posted on the Department of Defense website. “There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first.”