Reply #4: The word *IS* getting out!

[LunaC]

Slowly but surely.....

From Scripps Howard News Service - December 6

The U.S. in Iraq: One war, many rationales

-snip-

Former President Jimmy Carter, for example, contends that Bush's lieutenants came to office hoping for an opportunity to establish an American foothold in the Middle East, and saw the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as an opportunity.

-snip-

Carter argues that, even before the September 2001 terrorist attacks, key members of Bush's administration wanted to march to Baghdad to establish an American beachhead.

"They had decided to go to war against Iraq before George Bush was elected," Carter told reporters on his recent book tour.

Indeed, two months before the 2000 election, a prominent neoconservative think thank, Project for the New American Century, issued a report that made the case for a bigger military presence in the Middle East.

"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security," the report said. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."