'Iraq war plotted pre-Sept 11'
2004-01-12 07:17
Washington - President George W Bush was intent on ousting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein long before the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill has told US media.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told the CBS television programme "60 Minutes," in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Bush fired O'Neill - a former CEO of aluminium giant Alcoa known for his blunt talk - in December 2002 for publicly doubting the need for the president's sweeping tax cut plans.
The interview came after O'Neill served as the main source for an upcoming book, The Price of Loyalty, which paints an insider's view of the Bush administration.
Speaking to Time magazine, O'Neill said: "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterise as evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
"To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else. And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterise as real evidence."
Bush took office in January 2001 - and in his first three months in power, officials were already looking at military options to remove Saddam from power, according to documents that O'Neill and other White House insiders gave author Ron Suskind.
Future of Iraq's oil
Officials were looking into post-war contingencies, including peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil, according to the documents.
One of the memos, marked "secret," says "Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq," Suskind told "60 Minutes."
A Pentagon document, titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," talks about "contractors around the world from 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq," according to Suskind.
Nobody questioned it
O'Neill told Suskind he was surprised that nobody on Bush's national security council - which includes national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - questioned why Iraq should be invaded.
"It was all about finding a way to do it," O'Neill is quoted in the book as saying. "That was the tone of it, the president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'"
'I don't do book reviews'
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan on Friday deflected repeated questions about O'Neill's assertions. "I don't do book reviews," he said.
O'Neill was the first cabinet member to leave since Bush took office in January 2001. Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Whitman left in June 2003. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez quit in December 2003.
- AFP