Rumsfeld: Iraq war was to distract from failure in Afghanistan

[muriel_volestrangler]

I just found this Australian review of the Bob Woodward book "Bush at War". It has a quote from Rumsfeld:

Rumsfeld and Cheney emerge as the most rabid warmongers. The book quotes Rumsfeld quite early on in the Afghanistan war as asking: "look, as part of the war on terrorism, should we be getting something going in another area, other than Afghanistan, so that success or failure and progress isn't measured just by Afghanistan?"

http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve03/1123review.html

Now, there's no reason you'd start another war because you thought you were succeeding too much in Afghanistan, so he was really saying that Iraq should be invaded to distract from the possible (and, as it turned out, real, since bin Laden was never captured, only Kabul came under 'coalition' control, and the Taliban are making a comeback) failure in Afghanistan.

I know we have thought things like this, but I've never heard it admitted by the administration before (and I can't see the quote used anywhere else on the Net).

[opihimoimoi]

1. He couldn't be THAT lolo but then arrogance does strange things

Or is he over the top? like a closet lolo?

[neebob]

2. I think it was more like

"Shouldn't we go somewhere else first, like Afghanistan, so we can call it the war on terrorism?"

[cliss]

3. Well, let's see now...

We invaded Iraq because:

1) they had weapons of mass destruction
2) Saddam was a threat to the US, so we had to take him out
3) Iraq has the world's #2 supply of oil, and we need it
4) This was the PNAC's first stop in a string of countries to invade
5) The US wants to control the Middle East
6) The war merchants wanted this
7) this was a good move for corporate interests
8) Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in, so we had to take him out
9) Saddam threatened King George I, so we had to take him out
10) by invading Iraq, the other countries will comply

And now they're saying that they invaded Iraq because Afghanistan was a miserable failure?

Why can't they get their facts straight? I'm sick of all the double-talk.

[opihimoimoi]

4. BWWWAaahahahahahahah LOL

Just luv the way you put it
:bounce:

[rock]

5. Right. It looks like their successes or FAILURES

will be many.