It's Craptastic!

The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 -- not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported.

That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to Correspondent Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," he tells Stahl. "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."
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Suskind says O'Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall -- including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil.

"There are memos," Suskind tells Stahl, "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'"

A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from...30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq," Suskind says.
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In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill in the book.

Suskind also writes about a White House meeting in which he says the president seems to be wavering about going forward with his second round of tax cuts. "Haven't we already given money to rich people ... Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle," Suskind says the president uttered, according to a nearly verbatim transcript of an Economic Team meeting he says he obtained from someone at the meeting.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview.


O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.

"As I recall it was just a monologue," he told CBS' "60 Minutes," which will broadcast the entire interview on Sunday.

In making the blind man analogy, O'Neill told CBS his ex-boss did not encourage a free flow of ideas or open debate.

"There is no discernible connection," CBS quoted O'Neill as saying. The president's lack of engagement left his advisers with "little more than hunches about what the president might think," O'Neill said, according to the program.

President Bush is planning a permanent science base for astronauts on the moon that could serve as a steppingstone for sending humans ultimately on to Mars, according to senior administration officials.

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday brushed off the conservative authors of a new book on U.S. foreign policy who accused him of being a "soft-liner" by curtly saying "I don't do book reviews."

The critics, former Pentagon official Richard Perle and former White House speech writer David Frum, wrote an opinion piece on Wednesday in which they suggested Powell was among a group of Bush administration officials who believe the way to defeat "terrorism" was through diplomacy and the United Nations.

This question has shown up on our discussion boards several times: "Can I go to the caucuses to support Wesley Clark?"
Several media sources have incorrectly stated that Clark is "not participating in the caucuses". In truth, the Clark campaign has chosen not to campaign actively in Iowa, which means not spending money on appearances, television advertising, etc.

One of our supporters (Joyce Carman) expressed this frustration in a discussion board posting:
I'm convinced there are many, many caucus goers in our communities who would like to know that they CAN caucus for Clark. We just have to keep working at getting that word out. Clark was on Talk of the Nation last week. He was delayed getting to the interview, so Neal Conan (moderator) was filling in with information and he kept saying over and over, "Clark isn't participating in the Iowa caucuses". I kept phoning and phoning and sent an email---asking him to correct the statement to "Clark isn't CAMPAIGNING in Iowa, but caucus goers there CAN caucus for Clark". Unfortunately, he didn't get my message or, at least, did not correct the statement. Possibly many of you did the same thing I did. We have to keep working at getting this message out. Thanks, everyone across the state, for the great work you are doing. --Joyce

Clark's name will be leading the ballot at the Iowa Caucuses ("C" is first in alphabetical order), so be sure to show your support.