Reply #15: Bush was trying to provoke war with Iraq as early as 2001, with Operation Desert Badger.

[TacticalPeek]

Operation Desert Badger, Bush trying to badger Saddam into war in 2001:

Although the assumption has been made that Operation Desert Badger mentioned by President Bush referred to "patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq" or other such aerial missions, on January 14, 2004, NewsDirector.org points out in its conclusion that that might not be so: <5>

"Bart Laws writes from Beantown on Iraq policy:

"The Globe reported today that GW Bush, responding to former Sec. O'Neill's allegations about when the invasion of Iraq was first planned, said: 'In the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with , and so we were fashioning policy along those lines. And then all of a sudden September the 11th hit.' That is not, in fact, what Bush said. The true quotation, as reported in the New York Times and played on radio and television, was as follows: 'And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with desert badger or flyovers and fly-betweens and looks, and we were fashioning policy along those lines.'

"Why censor the President's remarks? This is actually a major news story, since we had never before heard of Operation Desert Badger. (I did a Lexis/Nexis search -- this is the first reference to it in at least the last five years.) Apparently Mr. Bush has revealed a heretofore secret military operation in Iraq that was going on in early 2000.

"Why would the Globe edit the President's statement to conceal this very important revelation? Also, though we had heard that flyovers were going on then, we had not previously heard about the fly-betweens. It is not clear that 'desert badger' refers to 'patrolling the no-fly zone,' as you reported. That conclusion is very likely incorrect, since desert badger doesn't sound like the code name for an aerial operation. Why not just report what the man actually said, rather than cleaning up his remarks to make him look like less of an idiot? Isn't it supposed to be your job to tell the truth?

"This desert badger thing is actually quite noteworthy, I think -- if reporters didn't just assume that Bush is moronic and out of touch with reality, they no doubt would have followed up to find out exactly what desert badger was all about. But they figure it was just a brain fart, so they clean it up for him. Hmm."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Operation_Desert_Badger

TPTB pay the media to not play up things like this.