http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-11-oneill-iraq_x.htmO'Neill: Iraq planning came before 9/11(Kerry-they deliberately lied to the American people)
By Dave Moniz and Peronet Despeignes,USA TODAY
CRAWFORD, Texas — Paul O'Neill, President Bush's Treasury secretary in the first two years of his presidency, says the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq long before the Sept. 11 attacks and used questionable intelligence to justify the war.
In wide-ranging interviews with the CBS program 60 Minutes and Time magazine, O'Neill said Bush and a number of top advisers began planning to get rid of Saddam Hussein soon after the 2000 election. As early as January 2001, they began looking for ways to justify an invasion, O'Neill said.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein is a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told 60 Minutes. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime."
In the interviews, O'Neill was critical of Bush's leadership skills. He said Bush is too secretive and has saddled the economy with crippling long-term debt.<snip>
In the book, Suskind used materials provided by O'Neill to show that Bush administration officials targeted Saddam immediately after the election. Interviewed in the Jan. 19 edition of Time, O'Neill said the White House overstated the threat posed by Iraq. "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction. ... I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence."<snip>
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said O'Neill's comments show that the administration deceived the public about its reasons for going to war in Iraq. "It would mean they were dead-set on going to war alone since almost the day they took office and deliberately lied to the American people, Congress and the world," Kerry said.<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/politics/12ONEI.htmlBush Sought to Oust Hussein From Start, Ex-Official Says (focused on "finding a way" to oust Saddam)
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 —<snip>…" Mr. O'Neill, who was dismissed by Mr. Bush more than a year ago over differences on economic policy, said Iraq was discussed at the first National Security Council meeting after Mr. Bush's inauguration. The tone at that meeting and others, Mr. O'Neill said, was "all about finding a way to do it," with no real questioning of why Mr. Hussein had to go or why it had to be done then. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," Mr. O'Neill said.<snip>
"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. O'Neill told Time, speaking of his tenure in the administration. "There were allegations and assertions by people. But I've been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions.
"To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else," he continued. "And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence."
<snip>In the interviews on Sunday, Mr. O'Neill did not describe in depth the early discussions about removing Mr. Hussein from power. Mr. Suskind told "60 Minutes" that he had documents dating from before Sept. 11, 2001, showing planning for the aftermath of a war with Iraq, covering peacekeeping forces, war crimes tribunals and Iraqi oil fields.<snip>
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